


Are you the one I've been looking for (all of my life)?

by Solnyshko_UK



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Caretaking, Discrimination, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Harassment, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Angst, No Sex, No Smut, Nudity, Original Character Death(s), Prince Katsuki Yuuri, Slow Build, Wizard Katsuki Yuuri, Wizard Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28344456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solnyshko_UK/pseuds/Solnyshko_UK
Summary: When Victor heard the tale of the Ice Prince for the first time, he was five years old.At 27, he was finally ready to put an end to the legend and save Yuuri Katsuki from his magical sleep.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 52
Kudos: 169
Collections: Yuri!!! on Ice Remix Challenge 2021





	Are you the one I've been looking for (all of my life)?

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I started this with the idea of writing something short and sweet for Victor's birthday.
> 
> It got away from me. It's a monster, but I'm in love with every part of it.
> 
> The title, as well as the idea, came from a song from Frozen 2 called "Show yourself". It's my favourite of the movie. I was watching the video for the umpteenth time a few weeks ago and all in a sudden I had a plot in mind. If you know the song, you will notice that in a specific part of the story I have used references from the lyrics. It's intentional and I have made this choice to give credit to what inspired me in the first place.
> 
> My deepest thanks go to EmHunter and QuagmireMarch for listening to my neverending blabbering and for reading pieces and parts that I threw at them, for giving me feedback and suggestion and always supporting and encouraging me. They both offered to proofread this story for me, but I honestly felt they did more than enough already.  
> Which means, every single mistake and plot hole you might find is mine and only mine, and I hope you will forgive me in case.
> 
> Happy belated birthday, Victor ❤️

“...and at that moment, Prince Yuuri understood that there was only one way to stop the disaster that was going to hit Velaris.”

The teacher stopped for a dramatic pause, watching the twenty faces looking at her with an enraptured expression and eyes wide open. She pushed down the smile that was threatening to rise on her lips, so not to ruin the story’s dramatic effect.

“He ran into the secret cavern, and once inside, he used all his power to cancel the summon and save the city. But this left him without strength and at the mercy of the unleashed forces. Ice trapped his exhausted body and ever since, Prince Yuuri has been lying somewhere, forever suspended in a magical sleep.”

There was a moment of absolute silence, in which the children still held their breath. And then the avalanche of questions began one on top of the other, each child eager to be heard more than his friends. Only one remained utterly silent, blue eyes still wide.  
The teacher laughed and raised her hands to calm the cacophony of sounds.

"It's just a legend, children. One of those that accompany the history of our city."

In the brief, disappointed lull that followed, the silent child raised a hand.

"Yes, Victor?" The teacher asked with a smile.

The little boy pushed his silver hair that reached just below his shoulders behind his ear with one hand.

"Teacher, is this why Ice magic is evil?"

The teacher's smile became a little tenser, but it didn't fade. The answer kept the children waiting for several seconds as if the woman were undecided about what to say.

"This is not a suitable discussion for five-year-olds like you, Victor. Later, when you are older, you will learn about Ice magic. What can I tell you, though," the teacher's voice grew conspiratorial, and the children leaned forward, attentive, "is that legends are often more than made up stories."

_______________

When Victor came out of school, there was no way to make him stop talking about the legend that the teacher had told in class. In the time it took to walk home, Victor had told the story in his own way so many times that his mother laughed and hugged him tightly. Once at home, she walked to a shelf full of books in the living room and after consulting the titles for a while, she pulled out a medium-sized volume, clearly used.

"Victor, this book belonged to your great-grandmother. It’s the legend of the Ice Prince, albeit in its longest version. If you like it so much, you can keep it, but you have to promise me to take good care of it."

The child reached out and grabbed the book gently, as he always did when he had to drink from a glass cup, and his father advised not to drop it on the ground, or it would break.

His greedy eyes absorbed the elegant gold lettering on the cover, the characters written in a style that made it difficult for Victor to recognise the letters. The little boy opened a few pages at random, and his blue eyes sparkled. Victor still couldn't read very well, but that book had drawings, albeit in black and white, in style used when his great-grandmother was alive.

Mrs Nikiforov smiled indulgently and gently plucked Victor’s silver hair, before moving to the kitchen to make dinner, leaving the child on the carpet, engrossed in his book.

_______________

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Victor, happy birthday to you!”

The choir ended with a loud cheer, and Victor blew out the eight candles at once.

"Make a wish, quick," his mother urged, and Victor closed his eyes and made the exact same wish he had requested for the past three years. He desperately wanted that new book, but mama and father told him he had to learn how to read properly first.

When he opened his eyes, there was a rectangular package in front of him. The child opened it hastily and didn’t hold back a gasp. Mrs and Mr Nikiforov burst out laughing when Victor got out of his chair with such enthusiasm that he almost tripped, and went to hug them with all the strength he had.

"Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!" The boy screamed before running back to the table to grab his new treasure.

Victor could now read, and the golden letters that made up the book's title were no longer incomprehensible, despite the ornate style. As he turned the pages inside, the child sucked in his breath noisily.

This book also had pictures.  
But the edition was modern, and the images were in colour.

Victor stared at the Prince's portrait, his dark hair, intense eyes and gentle smile. The skin was not as fair as Victor's, but only slightly. The Prince wore a blue jacket, open over a black shirt with a V-neckline up to the collarbone; three golden cords connected the jacket’s edges at the chest, navel, and belly’s height. On the shoulders, there were two golden insignia; two more golden cords fell from the left one to wrap the shoulder softly. The sleeves of the jacket were three-quarter length, and from under them, long black gloves came out, which went to cover the knuckles of the hands and the thumbs, leaving the other four fingers uncovered. Tight black trousers wrapped the Prince's legs, and they slipped into black boots that stopped below the knee. Under the image, a caption read "Prince Yuuri Katsuki at 24, at the time of the ice threat." The Prince looked so elegant, so regal. 

Victor pushed the book against his chest and started to run towards his room.

“And the cake?” asked Victor’s father.

“Later,” came the hurried answer, followed by a door shutting closed.

Mr and Mrs Nikiforov smiled in amusement.

"Do you think we should worry about this obsession of his?" The woman asked after a moment.

Her husband shook his head, still smiling. "He'll get over it, I'm sure. He just needs to grow a little more. Now let’s put away this cake before I decide to eat it all."

_______________

When Victor was ten, something strange happened.

It was only a moment, so quick it could easily have been just his imagination. But in a blink of an eye, the water Victor was manipulating with his magic during the lesson _changed_. The child could not have explained it otherwise, but it was as if a few drops suddenly solidified, and then returned to liquid form.

And it _could_ have been just imagination, maybe a trick of the light in the room. 

Except Victor _sensed_ that mutation.   
He felt it, through the energy of his fingers.

The shock was so violent that Victor lost control and the water splashed on the floor of the classroom with a loud noise, soaking his shoes and the hem of his trousers.

“Are you alright, Victor?” The teacher asked, frowning, approaching him. “You look so pale.”

“No, I-.” Victor swallowed, his throat dry. “I don’t- I don’t feel very well.” 

Victor went home early that day. By the time he was there, the feeling of uncontrollable panic had subdued into a restless buzz under his skin, and he hastened to reassure his mother that it was probably just tiredness. The colour had returned to his cheeks, and Mrs Nikiforov seemed reassured, so when Victor said he was going for a walk to get some fresh air, she gladly agreed, warning him not to go too far.

Victor walked calmly through the streets of Velaris, heading towards the outer edge of the city. Fortunately, his house was already in a peripheral area, so reaching open spaces was not at all difficult. Once the last homes were far enough, Victor started running.

When he reached his favourite spot, the child had to stop bent double, his hands on his knees, desperately trying to catch his breath. Victor sat down on the grass, breathing heavily, letting his eyes wander around.

Victor had often walked with his parents in the open spaces outside the city. Together they had climbed the hill where he was now several times, admiring the view as far as the eye could see. His father usually pointed to the various aggregations of houses in the distance, naming the towns they belonged to, following the river between them with his finger and squinting to see the great forest laying to the West. Velaris was on the plain, and only a few distant hills disturbed an otherwise completely flat landscape.   
Except for the north.

Victor took a deep breath and slid his gaze towards the black shape in the distance, so large that even from there, it seemed to cover the entire horizon.

Chaska.  
The cursed mountain range.

Victor felt a shiver go through him that shook his entire body. It happened to him every time he looked at the mountains, and he blamed the place's sinister fame. Chaska was considered cursed because anyone who had attempted to climb any of its tops had never come back. The few towns that dotted the north’s landscape stopped long before reaching even the mountain range slopes, which towered over an area as green as it was completely devoid of human presence.

Now, however, Victor had more immediate issues. The child rose from the ground, patting his trousers on the back to remove grass clippings, and moved to the edge of the pond that lay nearby. It wasn't a large body of water, far from it, and even at its deepest point, it didn't go beyond Victor's thigh. But it was more than enough.

Slowly, hesitantly, Victor called out his magic and directed it towards the surface of the water. It responded instantly, obediently, and rose in a thin and elegant arc, like a silver thread suspended in the sky. Victor rolled his hand slightly, and the water coiled around itself like a spiral, as if it possessed a physical form. The child moved his second hand, lifting a second stream of water that rose to intertwine with the first.

Maybe he was wrong.  
Maybe it had been just something made up by his mind.  
Maybe-

There was a sound like a cracking glass. It wasn't loud, but it seemed to Victor that it rang in the place’s silence like a thunder in a storm. He stared, his hands utterly still, the water suspended in the air moving lazily back and forth along the magical flow until it collided with the ice created where the two streams had intertwined.

The weather in Velaris was always mild. Even in winter, temperatures rarely forced locals to wear more than a light jacket. Despite this, Victor was shivering, a sudden chill gripping his stomach.

Having magical powers was by no means uncommon. Those who manifested powers did so around eight to nine years of age on average, and magic usually involved one of the main elements: fire, air, earth, and water.

Victor's powers had appeared shortly after his eighth birthday, in the form of the water element. His parents had been enormously proud, and Mr Nikiforov had told Victor that the Water magic passed down in his family for generations. Neither parent had manifested any magical power, but the fact that Victor inherited it instead had been a source of great joy.

During the first lesson on magical powers, Victor learned that there was only one element considered forbidden. It was no news for him, but he always hoped to know more about Ice magic, given his obsession with the Ice Prince’ story. The ability to manage ice was so rare that there had been no news of anyone with those powers for nearly fifty years.  
Now, Victor’s mind went suddenly back to that conversation.

***

_"Of course," the teacher added, "it's also possible that someone owns Ice magic and keeps it hidden, even if it’s unlikely. It’s not easy to hide such power."_

_"Why should they keep it hidden?" A little girl asked with a perplexed expression on her face._

_"Because those with the power to command the ice are not left to live with their community," the teacher replied, drily. "They are deported to a secret place and kept under close surveillance throughout their lives."_

_The whole classroom fell into absolute silence._

_"Why?" Victor asked._

_The teacher didn’t answer immediately. Victor was strongly reminded of his kindergarten teacher when he’d asked her about Ice magic._

_"This is a matter for when you are older," the man finished in a definitive tone._

***

Victor remembered wondering when he would be old enough to have that question answered.

Now, with his gaze unable to turn away from the ice hanging overhead, he wished he would never know.

_______________

That same night, Victor’s restless sleep was interrupted by a voice singing a sweet but sorrowful melody. There were no words, but the feelings that shone through it were impossible to misunderstand. It was a melody that felt like a call, a desperate attempt to reach out to someone.

The next morning, Victor couldn't tell if he had dreamed or really heard it. What he did know, however, was that the melody was stuck in his head with the same clarity as if someone were playing it in front of him at that very moment.

In the safety of his room, he could only stare at his treasures; the books he had collected in years, the versions of the Ice Prince’s legend since the very first one Victor had received, perfectly kept as he had promised his mama all those years ago. 

Victor wondered if he would be allowed to take them with him if he would be deported.

______________  
  


Oddly enough, it never happened again.

Victor spent the next few years in terror every time he had to use his magic. Every time, he wondered if this would be it, the moment when the water would turn to ice, and he would be arrested and swept away while everyone would give him horrified and disgusted looks.

But the water remained water, and his studies continued without incident. His anxiety subsided little by little until his memory became confused with his dreams and he was no longer able to remember if that day at the pond really happened or if it had only been a very vivid dream. And then he forgot all about it.

______________

Not the song, though.  
The song kept coming back to him every night since then, without fail.

One night, during one of the school holidays, Victor was walking in the sleeping house’s darkness, headed for the kitchen to get a glass of water. He wasn't sleepwalking; he was sure of that, because he had bumped into the furniture in the corridor a little while earlier after miscalculating distances, and his side was throbbing dully with every step. Victor muttered some curse in a low voice. At fifteen, he was quite tall. He'd had a growth spurt recently, and at times he felt uncomfortable in that long-limbed body, with the balance to regain even in the simplest movements.

He was grumpy when he reached the kitchen and took a glass cup from the cabinet. The other hand grabbed the water pitcher, and Victor turned his back to the counter to lean against it as he filled the cup.

It was then that the song made itself heard, the melody so clear that Victor started. His hands lost their grip, and both the cup and the pitcher crashed to the ground in a cacophony of broken glass and splashing water.

Victor felt something inside him shatter with them. He struggled to keep his emotions under control lately, and he often had a rage or a rude response. His mother had explained to him that it was a phase of his growth. His human brain was growing at two speeds and the emotional half matured much faster than the rational one, resulting in the emotions having almost undisputed reign. But knowing the motivation didn't make it easier for Victor to control his reactions.

And at that moment the only thing that came to his mind was to raise his arms to the ceiling in a fit of rage, to squeeze his eyes so hard that he saw white spots behind closed lids, and to scream at the melody that surrounded him. “Look what you’ve done! What do you want from me?"

The music continued undisturbed for a few seconds until its natural conclusion and then died away.

In the silence that followed, the sound of his heavy breathing rang through the dark room. Victor slowly lowered his arms and face, bringing the former along his sides and the latter towards the floor, keeping his eyes closed, trying to calm himself.

"... Victor ..."

The boy's head snapped to the kitchen door. His mother and father were standing in the doorway, staring at him with wide eyes.

"I'm ... I'm sorry," Victor said, somewhat embarrassed, "they slipped out of my hand. I'm sorry I woke you up. I’m going to clean now…”

His voice trailed off, uncertain. Victor frowned. His parents continued to say nothing, but his mother had brought a shaking hand to her mouth, covering it entirely. His father was staring at the floor instead. Both were deathly pale. At first, Victor had thought it was the moonlight filtering through the window, illuminating everything in a silver glow, but now he wasn't so sure anymore.

The boy followed his father's gaze to the floor, feeling uncomfortable, and suddenly he couldn't breathe.

The moonlight reflected off the smooth surface, sparkling. There weren’t enough glass shards to give that glittering effect. Victor's brain, which had stopped abruptly, started working again in time to process what he was looking at and provide him with the merciless explanation.

Ice.

Wherever the water from the cup and pitcher splashed on the floor, ice sparkled, as wonderful and terrible as the sentence it carried.

“I-,” Victor tried to say, but his voice was stuck somewhere in his throat and refused to move as if it was something tangible and heavy. He raised his gaze to look at his parents, the colour drained from his face, his eyes huge and full of dread.

Mr Nikiforov was the first to recover. His footsteps creaked on the thin layer of ice as he made his way to the window, snapping the curtains shut and cutting out the moonlight.  
In total darkness, Victor heard a drawer open, objects moved and then the sound of a lighter. Shortly after that, a candle’s faint flame enveloped Mr Nikiforov's tense face in warm light. The man found a candle holder and placed everything in the centre of the kitchen table. Then he headed for the kitchen door, where his wife was still motionless.

"Come on, dear. You'd better sit down. I'll get you something to drink. Victor, sit down as well." 

His father's voice, strained but gentle, snapped Victor out of his haze. The boy reached the nearest chair and slumped heavily, collapsing like an empty sack on it. Victor brought his folded arms to the tabletop and rested his forehead on them, hiding his face. He heard the sound of another chair shifting and moving in front of him. Soon after, other sounds filled the kitchen: the clink of glass, the snap of an uncorked bottle. Three dull thuds on the table, as many cups placed on it. A spilt liquid, another object placed on the table. A chair crawling on the floor and the weary sigh of another body dropped onto it.

For a few moments, Victor didn’t move. He heard his parents’ quiet voices talking to each other, but the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears prevented him from concentrating on the words.

The memory of the day at the pond came back, and with it, the realisation it had never been a dream, despite what he wanted to believe. What would happen to him now? Where would they take him? What would become of him? Would he ever see his parents again? And did they still want to be with him? What if-?

“Vitya?”

His mother's voice interrupted the destructive series of questions and forced him to raise his tear-streaked face. Victor hadn't even noticed that he had started crying. His mother reached over the tabletop and stroked his long silver hair with a shaking hand. Her smile was still uncertain, but she was definitely calmer. Victor felt a hand, large and warm, resting on his back, between the shoulder blades, and he turned his head to see his father smile reassuringly.

"How long, Vitya?"

That was all his father asked him, and Victor couldn't understand how they could be so calm, how they weren't horrified, how they hadn't already called for help.

"I-," the boy tried again, but his voice was hoarse, his throat ached from how dry it was. Without thinking, Victor took the cup in front of him and took a sip. His throat went up in flames in an instant, and the boy began to cough violently as an unknown heat descended into his stomach, following the liquid’s path. Mr Nikiforov gently tapped his back.

"Easy on that, Vitya. It's a pretty strong liquor."

Victor raised incredulous, watery eyes to his father, still coughing, and the man shrugged.

"I think this is a good time to make an exception."

When Victor was finally able to stop coughing, he found he was calmer than before. He cleared his throat for a moment, his hands around the cup and his eyes on the liquid inside.

"It only happened once before today. I was ten. It never happened again; I thought it was too vivid a dream ..." His voice trailed off in a whisper, and Victor had to fight to raise his eyes and look first at his father and then at his mother. "Will you ... will you have me deported?" Victor hated the hysterical note in his voice, but he couldn't have held it back even if he had wanted to.

Mrs Nikiforov inhaled sharply and jumped out of her chair, circling the table and then falling to her knees beside Victor’s chair and hugging him tightly, fiercely.

"Never. Never Vitya!"

"But ...," the boy said, in a desperate tone, "but I have ... I can ..."

"Vitya, listen to me."

Mr Nikiforov's voice, calm but firm, once again calmed the whirlwind of thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him, and Victor turned all his attention to his father. The man ran a hand through his thick, light-coloured hair and closed his green eyes for a moment. When he opened them, there was determination in his gaze.

"I told you that in recent generations, not many in our family had magical powers. The last one was my uncle, your grandfather's older brother."

Victor nodded slowly. "Uncle Alexei. The one who went away overnight when he was about my age, saying he wanted to devote himself to travel and adventures. You told me this story before, what-"

His father raised a hand, and Victor fell silent.

"I didn't tell you the whole story, Vitya, because there was no reason to do that."

His parents exchanged a glance that Victor didn't understand, and then his father's eyes returned to him. His voice, when he spoke again, had dropped to almost a murmur.

"The reason uncle Alexei left was that his magic had manifested the powers of ice."

Victor held his breath, his eyes wide. His next question came out in barely a whisper. “How do you know?” 

“Because he's still alive; he was in contact with your grandfather, and later with me. Each time, he only did so to tell us how to get in touch with him if another family member manifested his same powers.”

Mr Nikiforov's penetrating gaze was almost unsettling. Victor felt his mother's hands on his shoulders, grounding him.

"You have to get out of here, Victor. You have no control over it now, and that puts you in mortal danger. Tomorrow I will contact uncle Alexei. I will personally take you wherever he asks to go."

Victor felt his head spin. Too fast. It was all happening too fast.

"But I ...," he tried to start, but this time it was Mrs Nikiforov who interrupted him.

"Vitya, listen to me. If you stay here, sooner or later, it will happen again, and there will be no escape. Alexei has lived so far without any problems. He has learned a lot. He might be able to teach you how to control your power."

There was a pause. Mrs Nikiforov moved in front of Victor and fixed her ocean-blue eyes into her son’s, silver hair glowing with candle reflections.

"What we are taught about Ice magic ... I don't think that's the whole story, Vitya. Find it out. Find your answers. When you find them, when you can keep yourself safe, come back to us. We will be here waiting for you."

______________

A few days after that night, when the sunlight was still only an idea on the horizon, Victor left his house for the last time. The boy hugged his mother in the doorway, bravely resisting the tears that stung in his eyes. She whispered encouragement and reassurance into his ear; one hand slipped between Victor's jacket and backpack to soothingly caress her son's back.  
Mr Nikiforov waited for the two to part and then hugged his wife, and the two spoke in murmurs for a few moments.

Victor used that time to regain control of his emotions and check the backpack’s weight on his shoulders for the umpteenth time: his Ice Prince books would go with him, even if it had meant giving up something else. His father had argued, but eventually had given in and prepared a second backpack to carry himself.

Finally, the man kissed his wife goodbye and turned to walk out of the path, nodding to Victor. The boy glanced again at his mother standing straight and proud at the front door, a reassuring smile on her pale face, and turned away from the life he had always known.

In the past days, Mr Nikiforov had already told the people closest to them that Victor would visit an elderly relative in another city to help him with his business, and wouldn't come back for a while. Nobody had asked for more explanations.

As the boy and his father walked towards Velaris's exit, Victor tried to understand his feelings. Everything had happened so quickly that he’d hardly had time to think. Alexei’s answer had arrived in a short time, with clear instructions on how to proceed. Victor had stayed at home in the days before the departure to avoid any kind of risk. The hours, sometimes dragging, others rushing so fast they seemed to disappear into thin air, were spent preparing what was necessary. The song had kept him unwanted company. Victor blamed everything on it. He kept repeating himself that nothing would have happened if the music hadn't frightened him that night.   
Rationally, the boy knew it wasn't right. Victor should feel grateful that it had happened in his house and not outdoors, at school or who knew where. But it was easier to vent his anger and despair on something that couldn't argue back, and Victor had resolved to ignore that forlorn call from that day on as if it were only a whisper in his mind that he wished would go away.

Now, as Victor was leaving his home, the melody surged for the first time during daytime. Victor nearly stumbled in surprise, and a strangled sound escaped his throat. Mr Nikiforov moved as if he wanted to help his son keep his balance, but the boy recovered before the gesture was complete.

"Victor, are you okay?" His father asked, worried.

Victor only noticed his father had spoken after several seconds, surrounded as he was by the melody that seemed to be stronger than usual, more urgent.  
Victor blinked in quick succession and turned to look at his father with wide eyes.

"Don't ... don't you hear anything?"

Mr Nikiforov frowned even more but turned to look around, trying to understand what had caught Victor's attention. Then he looked back at his son, slowly shaking his head.

"Nothing. What did you hear?"

His mind still full with the notes that seemed to have a hint of despair, Victor exhaled a tremulous breath. He had told his parents everything except the melody. Victor couldn't have explained why; it just didn't seem… right. And now he was sure that only he could hear it, whatever it meant.  
Victor pursed his lips and shook his head.

"Nothing, I must have been wrong," he replied, starting to walk again.

The music followed, repeating itself over and over.  
For a maddening moment, Victor wondered if it was reacting to him leaving Velaris. And then he chuckled dryly, closing his eyes: he was self-suggesting. The whole situation was taking a toll on his mental health. He should talk to his father, tell him what he heard, and ask for advice. The man would undoubtedly give him a rational explanation, and Victor would cease to torment himself.

Except Victor didn't say a word to his father.  
Instead, at the umpteenth repetition of the melody, he decided he had enough and strengthened his resolve.

The boy persisted in ignoring the familiar notes until they began to decrease in intensity with the increasing distance from Velaris. Eventually, they disappeared completely, finally leaving only silence around him.

Instead of being happy, Victor just felt an uncomfortable sense of loss.

______________

Victor studied.

Uncle Alexei lived in an area of the Continent so far from Velaris that they treated news of historical events related to Ice magic like children's stories. But even in this remote corner of the world, people with Victor's and Alexei's power seemed not to exist; therefore, the man's home was located in the hinterland, far from the nearest inhabited centre, a city similar in size to Velaris named Xanthior. A forest surrounded the house, and no one could come across the area by accident. It was a secluded but not isolated place, perfect for Victor to learn how to manage his unwanted potential.

Uncle Alexei was a stern man, but not unkind. It was long ago since he'd had to leave his home in order not to succumb to the same fate that would have awaited Victor if he had stayed. The memory of how he had felt at that age and how tough it had been was still alive inside him.   
The man was old, with hair still thick and grey with age. Expression lines lined his fair skin, and his eyes were a very pale blue, almost the colour of ice. One of the first questions Victor asked him was whether his magic had made them that colour. Alexei chuckled and reassured him that Ice magic didn’t have the power to change its user’s physical traits, just like the other kind of magic.

“You must understand, Victor, that everything you have ever known about Ice magic is at best inaccurate," the gruff voice of the old man said during one of their first lessons, shortly after Victor had settled in his new house.

"But none of the teachers ever said anything, uncle Alexei. It was always a matter for when we were older," Victor complained.

Alexei's lips twisted upward briefly in a smirk. "That's because none of them has the slightest idea of how to answer." The sharp smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "Traditional studies would have brought you into the hands of those who are very biased towards Ice magic. Tell me, Victor, have you ever heard of Avador Sokolov?"

Victor blinked, and his expression remained blank. Alexei just nodded.

"As I imagined. Avador Sokolov was the wizard who unleashed the power of ice on Velaris and the surrounding area for miles. It was accidental, but it’s the reason why people fear those with Ice magic to this day. Not in all ages it is it possible to have a powerful wizard as Prince Katuski to oppose a potential- "

Victor's head snapped so suddenly that the boy felt dizzy and had to bang his hands against the tabletop to ground himself, interrupting the lesson. Alexei sported an expression that was anything but impressed.

"Katsuki ... Yuuri Katsuki?" Victor's voice sounded strange even to his own ears. "The Ice Prince? He was ... did he really exist?"

Alexei scoffed, rolling his eyes. "The Ice Prince. Funny how no one ever wondered how it’s possible, if he truly was an Ice Prince, that the ice itself trapped him in the end."

Victor stared at his uncle. 

Alexei put his hands on the tabletop, intertwining his fingers, and looked at his nephew calmly, waiting. Several minutes passed before Victor frowned, licking his lips nervously before speaking again.

"So the legend ... isn't true?" Victor wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. His heart was beating deafeningly in his ears. The boy thought of all the versions of the book he had in his room, how they had travelled with him as his most precious possession. How the story had always meant the world to him, since the first time he heard about it. Alexei had seen the volumes when Victor had unpacked a few days earlier but had not commented. And now...

"It was never a legend, Victor. But someone started to narrate it as such to sweeten what happened. Take the facts, change the narrative, make it more fictional, and over time the people will forget the real events to embrace the legend." There was a pause, and the already stern eyes became, if possible, even harder. "Make the people ignorant, and you can control their passions, lead them where you want them to be. For example,” and Alexei’s voice took on a tone that rang like condemnation, “to be wary of people that manifest Ice magic, the rarest magic of all.”

Victor swallowed, but no benefit came to his suddenly parched throat. “So… so what happened? What did actually happen, I mean?”

Alexei leaned back again against the back of the chair. His eyes travelled briefly to the ceiling as if collecting thoughts. When the man's voice began to speak again, it was with calm and confidence.

“Avador Sokolov was a very promising wizard. At that time, Ice magic was treated like the others and its users, being extremely rare, were held in the highest regard. Unfortunately, Sokolov was surrounded by pimps who had no other purpose in life than to cheer his every gesture. The one who could have become a shining star of inspiration and wisdom became a man devoured by his own ambition and the belief that he deserved to lead the world as a ruler. Sokolov was not the first and will not be the last to fall victim to certain beliefs, but he was undoubtedly the first to do so by possessing rare and powerful magic. He became convinced that he could master everything, including his magic, without having to study or practice."

Alexei interrupted his narration to pour water for himself and Victor. He took several sips, before placing the glass back on the table and continuing.

"Of course, those with ambitions of this kind follow an often predictable mental pattern. Sokolov was no exception: he decided that a man of his calibre needed a mansion that would stand tall, dominate everything else from above. A place that always forced everyone to look up to him."

Once again, Alexei fell silent and stared at Victor, waiting for something.  
It didn't take long before realisation dawned on the boy, who slowly widened his eyes, understanding.

"Chaska."

Alexei nodded. "Chaska. Sokolov found a natural cave almost on top of one of its mountains and made it the centre of his magic, filling it with intricately interwoven spells. But that madman did not have enough knowledge and skill to understand what he was doing entirely. One specific combination of a few spells generated a sort of vortex of power that fed itself out of control. It grew out of all proportion, becoming an almost sentient thing. It almost immediately started to impact the surrounding area, reaching Velaris and knocking down a storm of wind and frost such that hundreds died before even understanding what had happened. Sokolov, realising that he had no hope of regaining control of his magic, attempted to escape.  
On his way, however, he found a group of extremely talented wizards who, having sensed the magical distortion emanating from the mountain, had set out to try to fix it.  
Sokolov died in the ensuing fight. Of the wizards who had headed there, only one was powerful enough to try to stop the magical monstrosity raging in the mountain."

"Yuuri Katsuki," Victor said in a whisper.

Once again, Alexei nodded. “Prince Katsuki was visiting the city. His fame as a royal and magician was already vast, and the Prince frequently travelled as a representative of his family. Although it was not his city, nor his kingdom, he didn't hesitate for a moment as he plunged into the belly of the mountain and battled the runaway flow. He finally succeeded in subjugating it, but he had to use all his power. It made him vulnerable to the last blow of the dying magic, which managed to trap him in the ice. The Prince, too exhausted and with his power spent, could not free himself and fell into a sleep induced by his magical grave.  
The wizards who had gone with him to the mountain tried to shatter the ice with the magic at their disposal, but none of them worked. Instead, the ice seemed to react to every attack and killed them all except one, the only one who managed to escape the cave and whose diary is still the only written record of what happened one hundred and fifty years ago. Since then, Chaska has been considered a cursed mountain range.”

"But then," Victor said after a long, stunned silence, his voice trembling, "if the ice trapped him... if he fought and defeated it before falling ..."

Alexei observed Victor with a calm look. “Fire, Victor. Prince Katuski was a Master of Fire.”

Victor sat as still as a statue, barely breathing. “...was?”

Alexei shrugged. "Whoever has looked for an answer to that question, Victor, has never returned from Chaska. It makes sense that one would seek answers on the cursed mountain range; except, nobody knows which one of the mountain tops is the right one. And very few know the truth about the events anyway. As I said, the diary of the survivor is the only written testimony, and it’s kept away from the population." Alexei slowly got up from the table, a sign that the lesson for that day was over. "It's been one hundred and fifty years. Using the past tense remains the most logical conclusion. Come on; it’s time to practice."

Victor resolved to ask another day how Uncle Alexei had learned the truth of the facts; if he had seen that diary in person and, if so, how he had done it.  
For now, Victor had already far too much information to consider.

______________

The nights were restless.

He didn’t feel any satisfaction or sense of relief in realising that he couldn’t hear the melody anymore; trying to sleep without it was an incredibly frustrating experience.

Victor felt unsettled as if something fundamental was missing. At first, he thought it was a matter of habit. After all, he told himself, the melody had come up every night systematically since he was ten. It was normal for him to struggle; it was just a matter of getting used to a different routine.

As the weeks went by, and then the months, the restless boy had to admit that there was no improvement in his mood, nor the quality of his rest. It was not only challenging to fall asleep; sleep itself was disturbed with alarming frequency by indistinct dreams, with such an emotional impact that Victor often woke up with a start, his heart beating wildly and his breath short. There was never any recollection of those dreams, except vague sensations or flashes so rapid that it was impossible to draw even the smallest detail.

For several months, the situation went on unchanged until one day, Victor was so distracted during the practical lesson that he almost froze half the woods on the west side of the house. Once Alexei was done yelling at him, the man put his hands on his hips and stared at Victor, frowning.

"What's the matter with you, boy? Your concentration has been deteriorating for weeks, and it's becoming dangerous."

Victor seemed to be staring at a point over Alexei's shoulder, and when he spoke, he asked another question instead of answering.

"Have you ever heard a melody out of nowhere, uncle Alexei?"

The frown on Alexei's face increased dangerously.

"What are you talking about, Victor?” Alexei said, angrily. “I’m warning you: if this is a way of changing the subject and avoiding the lecture ..."

But Victor was already shaking his head slowly, his long silver hair brushing his back well below his shoulder blades. The boy seemed to argue with himself for a long time, and the conflict was so evident in his expression that the frown on Alexei's face slowly turned to concern.

"There's one thing I've never told anyone," Victor finally resolved, his words barely louder than a murmur.

And so Victor told his uncle how the melody had presented itself on the night of that first ice accident, years ago. How it made himself heard every night and only during the night. How the pattern had changed the day he’d left Velaris, the urgency that seemed to ooze from the familiar notes. How his father had heard nothing. And how Victor hadn't heard it since, and the impact that the absence was having on his nights.

For several minutes after he finished speaking, there was only silence. Alexei raised a hand and brought it to his eyes, massaging them silently, before squeezing the bridge of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, eyebrows furrowed to the point of almost touching.

"I've never heard of anything like that. I don't even know if it has any relevance, but if it came with the first appearance of your power, better not consider it a mere coincidence. Could you repeat the melody?" Alexei asked, his voice permeated with a strange shade of uncertainty and frustration. 

For a moment, Victor tried to imagine what it meant to a man like Alexei, who had spent his entire life studying every nuance of ice magic and every document he could get his hand on, discovering that there was something he might didn't know. Probably not the best feeling.

Victor roused himself from those thoughts and nodded. Though it had been months since he had last heard it, the melody was crystal clear in his mind as if played in front of him just moments ago. The young man cleared his throat and intoned the notes, his lips tightened, careful to perform every slightest nuance. His blue eyes remained fixed on his uncle, and when a strange expression crossed the older man’s face, Victor's heart made an unexpected leap in his chest, his voice faltering for just a moment.

The notes died away, and the silence that followed was solemn as if there was a revelation of some sort hanging over their heads, just out of their reach.

"It feels familiar, but I can't pinpoint how or why." This time the frustration in Alexei's voice was unmistakable. The man sniffed irritated. “I’ll do some research, see what I can find. For now, I’m going to give you something at night that will knock you off whether you want it or not. Until we find an explanation or a better method, you must sleep and recover energy and mental freshness. Our priority is for you to learn to control your magic so that you can return home safely ... "

But Victor was no longer listening. Because suddenly, faint as if it came from a great distance and yet undeniable, the melody rang in his mind, as in response to his singing. 

______________

Alexei sent him off shortly after, saying he would check something, and Victor found himself with nothing to do and a few hours of light before the sunset.   
At a loss of ideas, he decided to look at the parts of the wood he had damaged with his magic.

Victor looked over the frozen trunks and the crystal-covered branches. It was fortunate that it was winter and it had recently snowed; it was unlikely anyone would notice that part of the woods anyway, unless they tried to get to the house, but better be safe than sorry. As unusual as it was to see ice, it certainly would have been less suspicious to see it during the cold season than if it were in the summer.

His magic was getting stronger, even Victor could see it. Touching a bare bush branch with his fingertips, he held back a curse as it was instantly covered with ice. Victor withdrew his hand and slowly folded his fingers over themselves until they clenched into a fist.  
He had to do better. He had to study more seriously, or he would get Alexei into trouble too with his carelessness. His uncle had not survived all these years to be endangered by him.

Victor passed the frozen trees but didn’t stop. He needed to think, and walking helped him focus. A thin layer of frost covered the undergrowth, and his footsteps creaked loudly in the absolute silence of the woods. The boy looked up at the sky, the bare branches of the trees unable to block it from view. An intense, uniform grey colour stretched from one end of the field of view to the other, without interruption of any kind. Victor felt like that sky, empty and dull.

When Victor looked back down, he blinked for a moment, puzzled. The trees’ line had opened up, and there was a slight climb devoid of vegetation ahead of him. Squinting to counter the annoying light no longer muffled by the trees’ presence, the boy realised he was at the base of a small hill. His confusion lasted a few moments, after which his steps resumed, cautious. The ground was slippery because of the frost, and Victor took great care not to slip. He was not particularly afraid of the fall itself, as the slope was negligible, but the impact of his hands’ bare skin on the frozen ground would not have been pleasant anyway.

It took a little over ten minutes to reach the top; the hill was invisible from anywhere you could look at it since its highest point barely reached the treetops. From there, Victor could let his gaze sweep over the woods until the roofs of the houses in Xanthior. The boy shivered as the sweat produced by the exertion cooled on his skin. Victor hadn't dressed for a hike, just to stay outside for his regular training; he was not ready to be exposed to the faint wind that swept the ground and blew his light jacket against his body. The boy wrapped his arms around his torso and started to turn to go back.   
And then he hesitated.

Victor’s sea-coloured eyes lifted again, his hands moving to hold his long silver hair behind his ears. Had he imagined it? Had he been so focused on repeating the melody for uncle Alexei that he mistook a daydream for something real?

Victor clenched his jaw and took a deep breath; the cold air invaded his nostrils almost painfully. And then he began to sing the melody, hesitant at first, but with increasing confidence as the notes progressed. The wind seemed to pick up the music and spin it around him, and Victor felt like only he could hear it, as if a shield of air was preventing the sound from spreading outside. Victor closed his eyes and turned his hands palms up, moving his fingers in a dance known only to him. Ice crystals formed in midair, stolen by the wind and carried into its current. Victor continued to sing, and the crystals danced around him even as his voice died away, leaving only the slight hiss of the wind.

And then the music started again, but it wasn’t him singing.  
Victor's eyes snapped to the east as if drawn inexorably by something in that direction. The melody answered in his mind, much clearer than earlier when his uncle was still talking. The distance made the sound faint, but there was no doubt, it was no trick of the imagination.  
The song was responding.

The wind surrounded Victor for a moment, and he had to squint his eyes, reducing his view to a slit.  
It was only a moment, the time of a heartbeat.  
The melody reached its climax, and a pair of dark eyes appeared before him, staring into his with an unsettling intensity.

Victor jerked, his eyes widening, and the vision disappeared. The wind seemed to subside abruptly, and the ice crystals floated gracefully to the ground, the treetops still and silent. Nothing moved, nothing had changed.

But Victor was sure he hadn't imagined it. The feeling had been too real. The boy stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe, his gaze still fixed on the east.

"Victor."

Uncle Alexei's voice shook him from stillness, and Victor turned his head towards the base of the hill, where the man was watching him with folded arms.

"Come home; dinner is ready."

Victor realised only then how the shadows had lengthened, how the light had diminished. It must have been late enough. The boy looked back to the east for a moment, where the sky was already completely dark, before turning and walking carefully down the hill.

His mind was already home, in his room.  
He had to check; he had to be absolutely sure.  
Because he knew those eyes, he had watched them eagerly for years in the pages of his books.  
Victor couldn't help but think how no portrait had ever done justice to the golden sparkles dancing in Prince Yuuri Katsuki's chocolate brown eyes.

______________

Winter gave in to spring, and summer followed almost without warning.

From the top of the hill now covered in grass, Victor listened to the wind gently blowing through the trees’ leaves, standing still with his eyes closed. He did his best to ignore his hair, silver strands caressing his cheeks when moved by the same breeze, and maintaining his position instead. His arms were bent at the elbows, forearms stretched out in front of him, and palms turned up. Victor inhaled deeply, holding his breath for a couple of seconds to find his centre; then he exhaled, focusing on the feeling of his bare feet firmly adhered to the ground.  
Bracing himself, he called his magic, his brows furrowed in the effort.

In the light of the rising dawn, a thin mist began to form from the ground, rising around Victor's bare legs in a lazy whirl. The fog spread around Victor, covering the entire surface of the hill, the shapes of the trees now indistinct with the humidity in the air.

Victor concentrated on his breathing, trying to keep it steady. His fingers bent slowly together towards the centre of the palms and then burst back open. The mist whirled faster, almost as if sucked towards Victor, retreating from the edge of the hill to gather around the boy and rising until it completely enveloped him.   
Victor released a shaky breath, a thin veil of sweat covering his forehead; that and the heavy humidity around him made his hair attach to the skull and the skin of his face. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but the boy refused to get distracted. 

Practising with the magic of Water during Summer wasn’t always easy. If the weather was hot and dry like it had been in the past couple of weeks, calling water from the soil was not an easy task, which was, of course, precisely what uncle Alexei wanted.  
The old man was watching Victor intently, his arms folded on his torso. Despite his age, Alexei was still in excellent shape, and he was still undergoing tough daily training which he also imposed on Victor.

Victor rolled his hands abruptly, and the humidity of the air around him seemed to materialise out of nowhere in a meandering line of water suspended above his head, sparkling in the sunlight that appeared on the horizon.

Alexei narrowed his eyes, his torso leaning slightly forward. 

Victor clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth slightly. The lines between his brows became more pronounced. The boy stood motionless for a few seconds, and then snapped both hands’ fingers in unison. A dry crack broke the silence, and the line of water instantly froze, still suspended in midair. The ice was transparent and pure, and the sunlight drew a rainbow that danced on the blades of grass.

Alexei nodded.  
  
Before his closed eyes, Yuuri Katsuki smiled at Victor.

______________

That night, Victor was resting in his room, but sleep was avoiding him. 

Since the day when Prince Yuuri’s eyes had bored into Victor’s for the first time, the boy had spent time on the hill every day. His relationship with the melody had changed significantly. Now Victor longed for an answer from the music because he hoped to receive a vision as well. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was shocking.

What had happened on the hill in the afternoon though had been something entirely new. Never before had Victor seen the Prince’s full face, nor had the vision acting in any way. It was always like watching a painting, vivid but motionless; instead, Prince Yuuri had smiled. His entire facial expression had changed when Victor had successfully turned the summoned water into pure ice: his eyes had softened, and the sweetest smile had curved his lips. Victor would have given anything to be able to reach out and touch the locks of black hair that caressed the Prince’s forehead.   
Instead, he had used all his willpower to remain still and not lose control of his magic. Alexei had been most pleased by his improvement.

Victor sighed and stood up, leaving his bed to walk in front of the window. The night outside was clear and full of stars, and his gaze trained instinctively towards the east. In his mind, he could see the dark silhouette of Chaska looming on the horizon as he used to see it from Velaris. Almost without thinking, Victor started humming softly. He wasn’t sure what to expect though; earlier, not only the vision had been different, but it had also appeared without the melody. Those familiar eyes had materialised slowly before his closed eyes, and for long moments he and the Prince had only stared at each other. Victor had fought the urge to divert his gaze, escape those brooding, chocolate-coloured pools and their dancing golden sparks. But he hadn't, and then the rest of the Prince’s face had slowly appeared. Victor had always known who those eyes belonged to, but that hadn't stopped his heart from skipping more than a beat in front of the high cheekbones, soft cheeks and full lips, framed by unruly black hair.

Victor raised a hand and placed his open palm on the cold glass of the window, his sea-blue eyes lost in the distance. His humming slowed until it stopped completely, but no answer came back.

The boy leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the glass for a moment, closing his eyes. Then, he turned to go back into bed.

The morning after, when he woke up blinking at the ceiling of his room, all he could remember of his dreams was a soft voice whispering the same words over and over again.

C _ome to me_.

______________

Several years passed, and Victor trained hard. 

As soon as he gained control over his magic enough to be sure accidents couldn’t happen, Victor was allowed to go with Alexei in the city to visit the library and the archives.  
Unfortunately, all their efforts to find more information about Prince Yuuri and the events involving him were frustrated. Xanthior was so distant from Velaris that mentions of what had happened there were few and inaccurate. Alexei began to go away for the whole day from time to time, to reach nearby cities. By the time Victor turned eighteen, Alexei had begun travelling even further, sometimes staying away for several days.  
Victor had entire notebooks of notes and exercises to study in his absence, and Alexei put him to the test every time he returned.

One day, just after breakfast, Alexei brought his hands to the table, fingers intertwined, and stared at Victor intently.

“I have to leave for longer than usual, Vitya.”

Victor met his uncle’s gaze and waited. 

At twenty, Victor was a strong, confident young man. The edges of adolescence had smoothed just enough to be sharp only when necessary. The long isolation had made him immune to the need to have people around him, but he still had an innate talent for being charming and sought after on the rare occasions he went to the city. An unspecified number of women of all ages and backgrounds had tried to seduce him, attracted by his exotic appearance. Victor had rejected them all with the utmost kindness. Rumours said that some men had run into the same result.

Victor stood out wherever he went thanks to his long silver hair and his eyes the colour of the shades of the sea. His facial features were firm, strong jaw and high cheekbones. His fair complexion and tall, lean but muscular body made him one of Xanthior's most sought-after men. Everyone also knew how unapproachable the young man was, behind his friendly facade.

“I finally managed to get in touch with a person who knows the story of Yuuri Katsuki and his family in depth,” Alexei said, calmly. “He possesses books and knowledge that are now unique in this Continent. If there is anyone who can answer our questions, it is him. Your story must have fascinated him a lot for him to have agreed to see me. He’s not an easy man to contact."

"Why can't I come with you?" Victor asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

“The journey is long, and I will take the opportunity to visit other people and other places along the way. It would be too disruptive for your studies, and I don't want to leave the house empty for so long either.” Alexei reached out to take the glass of wine in front of him and sipped it calmly before talking again. “Your skills have grown immensely, and I have almost nothing left to teach you, but you still need to practice. Also, I don't want to put you at risk. Your connection to Prince Katsuki has grown as strong as your power over the years. Some may want to take advantage of it.”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “You don’t trust this man.” It wasn’t a question.

Alexei shook his head slowly. “I don’t trust anyone, Vitya. Nothing has changed for those who possess Ice magic in these years.” The old man raised from his chair. “I’m leaving this morning. I’m not sure how long it will take, but I trust your judgement while I’m away.” 

Alexei was already on the kitchen threshold when he turned back and looked at Victor over his shoulder.

“And remember to write to your parents. You tend to forget to answer their letters.”

Victor rolled his eyes with a fond smile on his lips and went in search of paper and ink.

______________

Victor spread his arms at his side; his fingers played lazily with the grass covering the hill where he laid. The sun caressed his body and his face, but behind his closed eyelids, he could see only impenetrable darkness.

“ _Come to me._ ”

Since Alexei had left for his journey months earlier, that whispering voice was the only company Victor had. He had understood long ago that it belonged to Yuuri, in some way; that the Prince was calling. Victor had tried many times to have questions answered, but it didn't seem to work that way. The voice always repeated those three words only, nothing else.

" _Come to me."_

Victor felt something pull in his chest, a craving so desperate it was painful, a longing that went deeper than it was right to expect. His fingers tightened around the blades of grass.

" _Come to me._ "

“Tell me where you are!” Victor snapped, nearly shouting.

The grass around him froze in a series of cracks, and Victor gritted his teeth. He hadn’t lost control of his magic for years; Alexei would be very disappointed if he knew.   
With an effort, Victor forced his fingers to release the grip, then lifted his shaking hands to cover his face.

"Tell me where you are," he repeated in a desperate whisper.

Many seconds passed in absolute silence.

 _“I wish I could tell you,”_ the voice answered, sorrowful.

Victor’s eyes snapped open. 

______________

Winter was creeping in slowly, fighting the stubbornness of Autumn. Leaves in all the brown, red and orange shades kept falling at every gush of chilly wind, leaving the trees increasingly bare.

Victor didn’t feel the cold though, surrounded as he was by his own magic and a controlled vortex of ice. His long, silver hair tied in a ponytail swept gently in the magical flow, while the young man stood still, in the middle of complex structures made of ice that kept rising and melting to transform into something else, like a gigantic snake changing its skin.

Victor took in the flashes of images behind his closed eyelids that kept appearing and disappearing at the same speed as his ice changed shapes. He tried hard not to focus on any of them, scared to miss something else in the attempt.

 _A stone with a particular shape at the side of a mountain trail.  
_ _Vastal visible in the distance from a high point of view.  
_ _A curve in the path that was followed immediately after by a narrower one.  
_ _Snow everywhere.  
_ _The entrance of a cave framed by columns of clear ice.  
_ _Darkness interrupted by flashes of moving lights.  
_ _A massive space with a gigantic glyph engraved in the iced floor.  
_ _A violent storm of magic, out of control._

Victor committed as many details as possible to memory, adding them to those he already gathered on previous occasions. The voice couldn’t tell him more, but lately, he could see these flashes of something, like broken memories seen through someone else’s eyes.

Victor was sure they were important; they were the key to find the Prince once he knew for sure where he had to go.  
When he knew for sure where he had to go.  
He refused to think about it as an if.

Sometimes, the visions were the same; sometimes, they were new. Every time, Victor tried his best to memorise them as if his life depended on them.

“Vitya!”

Victor’s eyes snapped open, and the magic broke in an instant, the water falling on the sparse grass with a messy splash. Usually, Victor would have let the water spread mid-air around him before letting it sink in the ground in a gentle rain. But now, hurrying down the hill, he couldn’t care less.

“Uncle Alexei!” 

Victor reached the man at the bottom of the hill, nearly stumbling for the rush. He grasped his uncle’s shoulders with his hands, taking in the tired stance, the hunched shoulders and the translucent quality of the man’s skin. Victor frowned.

“You’re exhausted, Uncle.”

Alexei kept looking at him in silence. A small smile curled his lips briefly, before disappearing.

“We have to talk, Vitya.”

Victor stared in his uncle’s eyes, and he _knew_.   
He was going to have his answers, finally.

“Sure. But first, let’s go back home.”

Victor hoped he succeeded not to make his voice tremble too much.

______________

“You've changed,” Alexei said, once he had washed the grime of the road from his body and sat at the table in his usual chair, hands gripping a mug of hot tea.

“It’s been nine months, Uncle,” Victor answered, serving the man a sandwich and some fruit, before taking his place at the opposite side of the table. “How have you been?”

Alexei’s corner of the lips twitched briefly. “I appreciate your effort to go for small talk, Vitya.” He sipped from the mug of tea, savouring the hot beverage for a moment. “It went well. I had to stop at more places than I thought I needed, but it was worth it. That’s why it took so long for me to come back.”

Victor’s effort to control himself was monumental. His hands were resting on the table in a relaxed pose, one bent around his cup of tea, but underneath the table, his left knee was bouncing relentlessly. The young man kept a pleasant smile and faked what he hoped was an interested gaze trained on his uncle, but he knew he’d miserably failed when he saw Alexei chuckling.

“Shall we start with the song?” Alexei said, and Victor straightened his back instantly, his torso leaning slightly forward. “I told you it sounded familiar. I heard it once or twice, but I couldn’t remember for the life of me where or when. It was much easier to remember, though, once I reached my destination.” Alexei sipped again from the mug of tea, eyeing Victor from under his lashes. “I didn’t tell you where the person I had to meet lives.” A short pause. “I went all the way to Hasetsu, Prince Yuuri’s hometown.”

Victor’s eyes became impossibly wide. He knew where Hasetsu was: a small town far away to the South, on the ocean, with a castle that was once the residence of Prince Katsuki’s Royal Family. He’d seen paintings in his years of research, and maps.

“The person I met is a direct descendant of one of the closest aides of Prince Katsuki, Yuuko Nishigori.” A small pause, while Alexei’s fingers laced together. “His archive has been extremely helpful. Yuuko Nishigori never believed Prince Yuuri was dead, and during her life, she tried to gather as much information as she could. Her three daughters, which she was pregnant with when Prince Yuuri disappeared, took over her legacy and kept searching. They have sent many explorers to Chaska, but nobody has ever returned. Of the triplets’ progeny, only the man I met kept searching. So he was delighted when I told him about your-,” Alexei stopped, searching for the correct word, settling then on “-situation.”

Victor’s throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow, let alone talk. He nodded weakly to show his uncle he was listening and sipped his tea.

“The song was a favourite of Prince Yuuri. It’s well-known in the area around Hasetsu, but not anywhere else. It has words, you know? Lyrics. I have copied them for you.” Alexei reached out to a leather folder lying on the table close to him and recovered a paper sheet. He slid it towards Victor; when the young man reached out to it with trembling fingers, Alexei withdrew his hand and went back to grab the mug of tea. When Victor didn’t move further, he arched an eyebrow. “Are you not going to read it?”

“Later,” Victor said in a croaking voice, his fingers laid on the sheet of paper with such gentleness, as he was scared of breaking it.

Alexei smirked. “Well, _later_ , when you read them, I’m pretty sure you won’t need any explanation about its meaning. The question remains about why you are the only one hearing it, but there was nothing in the archive about it. So we can only take it as a confirmation, if you ever needed one, that the melody is indeed coming from Prince Katsuki.” 

The smirk disappeared slowly from Alexei’s lips, and Victor instinctively tensed.

“They did an excellent work with the archive, Vitya. In the years since I last saw the diary of the survivor, Nishigori retrieved it for himself, so I was able to cross-check different information.” The pause that followed was heavy, like a sky full of dark clouds promising a storm. Alexei’s eyes met Victor’s above the rim of the mug. “I know where he is, Vitya. But I don’t know if I want you to go.”

For a moment, Victor was sure he must have misheard. He blinked twice, waiting for Alexei to backtrack or explain in better terms, but his uncle sat silent, studying him with a sharp gaze. And then, Victor’s brain caught up with the words and the young man stood up so fast that his chair tilted on its legs, crashing on the floor behind him with a loud noise. Neither of the men paid any attention to it.

“Uncle! How can you say that?? We’re searching for years! We have invested so much, and now that you finally know, you are _not sure if you want me to go_?” Victor shouted, parroting the last words with an angry note in his voice. He felt like his heart was going to explode in his ribcage. So close. He was so close.

“Calm down, Vitya-,” Alexei started to say, but Victor slammed the palm not laying on the sheet of paper on the table with a loud bang, his face turning blotched with red as his anger mounted.

“I’m not _calming down_ , Uncle. I have waited so long! And I- I know he’s calling me. Me! He’s waiting. And you have no right-”

“I have all the right! I have all the right not to send you to death, Victor Nikiforov!” Alexei shouted, startling Victor, forcing him to stop talking.

For a moment, the sound of ragged breaths filled the silent room, only a tense silence between uncle and nephew facing each other, none of them daring to break eye contact first.

“Please…,” Victor whispered, desperation filling his eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Alexei deflated. All in a sudden, the man looked older. And tired. 

“Mount Kavan,“ he said eventually, his head bending forward in defeat. 

Victor’s lungs forgot how to breathe.

______________

Later, much later, Victor found himself in his room, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his eyes glued to the sheet of paper he’d read at least ten times already. 

The lyrics were in the original language on the left and translated in the common language on the right. Victor wasn’t quite sure about the actual wording’s pronunciation or where it came from, but the translation was more than enough for him to have his heartbeat going all wrong.

 _With a sword, I want to cut those throats singing about love.  
_ _I wish I could enclose in ice the hands that write those verses of burning passion._

Loneliness. So much loneliness and sadness.  
Was Prince Yuuri really feeling like this? Were the lyrics resonating with him, or was it just a song he liked?

_If I could see you, eternity will be born from hope._

A call. 

Earlier, Victor had told Uncle Alexei that Prince Yuuri was calling him. He was sure about it, and the final proof was right there. He didn’t care why. It didn’t matter. All it mattered was that Victor was going to free Prince Yuuri. He was going to see those beautiful eyes alive in front of him.

That train of thoughts took him inevitably on Mount Kavan.

Of all the mountains that made up the range known as Chaska, Kavan was the highest and most dangerous. It soared above all the other peaks, with a characteristic three-pointed shape called the Fingers. Its walls were smooth and steep, with very few grips for climbing. A ring of clouds perpetually enveloped the base of the Fingers, where a snowstorm raged continuously. If people considered Chaska a cursed mountain range, then Kavan was its epicentre.

Victor leaned backwards, flopping his back onto the mattress. The hand holding the paper came to rest above his chest, while the other forearm covered his closed eyes. He could understand why his uncle didn’t want to tell him. In retrospective, it also made sense that Mount Kavan was the place: according to what Alexei told him about Avador Sokolov, that was precisely the kind of high spot the wizard would have chosen.

Lost in thought, Victor started humming the melody. He took it slow, trying to fit the lyrics he already knew by heart: they didn’t quite meet the pauses and the ups and downs of the music, but he guessed that was what the words in the original language would do.  
When he reached what he thought was the refrain, Victor felt a shiver rolling down his spine, his tone of voice becoming almost reverent.

 _Stay close to me, don’t go away.  
_ _I’m afraid of losing you._

Behind Victor’s closed eyelids, Prince Yuuri’s face came into focus, his eyes wide and shining with emotion too big to contain, his plush lips slightly parted in a stunned expression. And then, the Prince’s hands came into view, closer, as if he was trying to reach out to Victor, to touch him, to cup his face.

" _Come to me, Victor. Please._ "

Victor felt tears stinging behind his eyelids but refused to open them, even when the tears found a way to escape, streaming down his cheeks.   
Never before had Yuuri talked with such fondness, adoration and desperation.   
Never before had he called him by name, the name Victor had told him many times without receiving an answer.

Victor raised his hands as he could reach out to the Prince, finding only empty air. He swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes and gritting his teeth, barely suppressing an animal-like cry of frustration, his nails sinking into the soft flesh of his palms.  
When he finally regained enough control to relax his eyelids again, Prince Yuuri was gone.  
Victor slowly opened his eyes, feeling the last tears rolling down towards his ears and wetting his hair on the pillow.

“I swear I'll come to you, Prince Yuuri. Wait for me, just a bit longer,” Victor whispered, staring into nothing. 

______________

Alexei’s health started to deteriorate after he came back.

The man was very old, however energetic, and such a journey had undoubtedly taken a very high toll on his body. Within a few months, Alexei could no longer walk without support.  
Victor, who felt overwhelming gratitude towards that man who had welcomed and protected him as a son, as well as teaching him to control and increase his magic, looked after his uncle with the utmost care.

It didn’t take long for Victor to understand Alexei wasn’t going to recover, and that these were likely the last years of his life.  
It took even less for him to decide he would take care of his uncle until the end.

They talked about everything and anything, about Alexei’s life when he was younger, how he’d felt when he’d been forced to leave his family to live. They spoke of Victor, his dreams and aspirations, what he planned to do when he found Prince Yuuri.  
It was never an if, in those conversations.

They walked around the house for as long as Alexei’s legs permitted, the old man heavily relying on Victor’s strength to keep himself straight. And when he couldn’t walk anymore, Victor bought a wheelchair to help him get some fresh air.

Season after season, they watched snow falling and flowers blooming, and when Alexei wasn’t able to leave his bed anymore, Victor sat on a chair next to his bed and read to him for hours, all his favourite books.

The younger man fed his uncle patiently, preparing soups when nothing more solid could go down his throat any more. He washed the older man’s body and hair and kept his bed warm with heated stones.

And when, after six years, Alexei closed his eyes for the last time, Victor was there, holding his hand, whispering that everything was going to be okay and he could rest now.  
When no other breath came after the last one, Victor kissed the man’s forehead and cried.

______________

Velaris hadn’t changed much in the ten years Victor had been away; some shops had closed, some families had moved, but overall it was all the same.

Victor’s parents’ house hadn’t changed either. 

Standing in front of the door, Victor couldn’t help but think about when he’d left so many years ago. Everything was so different now; then, he’d wanted to run away from the same melody he now desperately yearned for. The irony made Victor smile bitterly, his gaze turning to watch towards the north; he couldn’t see Chaska from there, but he could _feel_ it.

With a sigh, Victor raised his hand and knocked at the door sharply twice. He heard shuffling inside, and then the door opened, Mrs Nikiforov on the threshold with a plate and a cloth in her hands, obviously caught in the middle of drying the dishes after lunch.

“Yes?” She said automatically upon opening, before actually looking at Victor, blinking a couple of times. The moment after, the sound of shattered porcelain on the ground was followed by the woman’s body impacting Victor's, her arms circling his neck and squeezing him close.

“Hi, mama,” Victor said with a soft smile, hugging her, suddenly surprised to feel her so small in his arms. Then again, the last time he’d embraced her, he was a teenager, and now he was a 27-years-old man.

“Vitya.”

The new voice roused Victor from his thoughts, and he looked over his mother's head into the house, finding his father motionless and with a shocked expression staring at him.

“I’m home,” Victor said, feeling something warm growing in his chest. 

He needed this; he needed to feel a sense of home again. After Alexei’s death, he’d taken time to make some arrangements about the older man’s properties, following the dispositions his uncle gave him when he was still able to think clearly. Everything related to Ice magic was now Victor’s property and was travelling in sealed boxes towards Velaris. The most important books were in the luggage that had travelled with him though, along with all the maps and the information he had gathered about Chaska and Mount Kavan while taking care of Alexei.

Victor couldn’t help but think about the Ice Prince books, which were his most precious possessions back when he had left. They were travelling in the boxes, fond memories but so far from what he knew about Yuuri now that he didn’t feel the need to have them close to him anymore. 

He had something which was infinitely more precious and so much closer to his heart now.

After a minute or so, Victor finally managed to gently extricate himself from his mother's embrace and lead her inside. Mr Nikiforov had recovered more quickly and had already run into the kitchen to prepare something to eat. It was there that they finally found themselves together, a strange embarrassment hanging in the air. Victor could understand: his parents had left a boy and got back a man, without being able to follow his transformation from one to the other.  
They needed time, and Victor was keen to give it to them, even if he didn’t plan to stay longer than the time he needed to prepare for his next journey.

The three talked quietly about Alexei, filling everything Victor couldn’t tell in the letters he wrote in the years. He told them about the progress he made with his magic, how it was under his control now thanks to what his uncle taught him. His parents told him about what had changed in Velaris, how life had been for them. Victor couldn’t help but notice that time had been very kind to his parents: there were grey hairs and lines on the skin, but otherwise they didn’t look changed at all. Victor ran his fingers through his hair, and the gesture reminded him of a decision he had taken even before he’d left Alexei's house.

“Mama, can you cut my hair?”

The woman frowned, but before she could say anything, Victor talked again.

“Yes, I have thought carefully about it. I’m not a teenager anymore; I don’t feel the same either. I have cut it myself in these years, enough to avoid having it growing to touch my feet, but I want something else now. Can you help me?”

Whatever complaints the woman might have, she forcibly pushed them down. Mrs Nikiforov just nodded and, as if she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, she got up to get the scissors and a comb. It took nearly two hours for her to finish, combing the long hair first and then blocking them in large sections with hair clips, working each one at a time. During the whole time, Victor and his father kept talking about this or that, slowly rebuilding the bond as a family.

When Mrs Nikiforov was done, Victor had short strands gently caressing his face and nape, the bangs left long and combed to one side, falling gently to cover his left eye. He helped clean the mass of silver hair on the floor without feeling any regret, and when they were again sitting together around the table, he addressed the last topic he had left unspoken.

“I’m leaving again in a few days.”

His parents looked at him, confused, so he went on.

“I have discovered a lot about Prince Yuuri. Uncle Alexei’s help has been invaluable, and it’s time for me to fulfil what I honestly feel it’s my destiny.” A short pause. “I have to go find him and awake him from his sleep.”

It wasn’t something new for his parents. In his letters, Victor had explained that he had discovered how the legend was real and that he was going to investigate. He had told them as much as possible without risking trouble if the letter went missing or read by someone else. Therefore, he hadn’t told them everything.

“And where is this place?” His father inquired, suddenly nervous.

Victor held his gaze, his voice firm. “Mount Kavan”.

“No!” His father shouted, immediately followed by a loud gasp from his mother, who covered her mouth with her shaking hands. “Are you out of your mind, Victor? That place is cursed! I forbid you to go!”

Victor let his father vent his shock and anger, sitting calm and controlled. When he spoke again, it was with firmness, but not without kindness.

"Father, with all due respect, you can't forbid me anything. I'm a grown man, and this is my choice. You can't tell me anything that uncle Alexei hasn't already told me, and even he has eventually realised that I wouldn’t change my mind. It’s something that I have to do."

“Why?” His mother asked, voice trembling.

Victor turned to her and smiled, trying to be soothing.

“Because he’s calling me. Since I was a teenager, mother, he has called me, and I’m the only one who can help him.”

“How do you know?” His father growled.

“I just know,” Victor answered honestly, with an apologetic expression. He knew he couldn’t offer more than this, but it didn’t make it any less true.

Mr Nikiforov rose from his chair and left the kitchen without a word, angry steps vibrating on the wooden floor. Victor let him go, turning to watch his mother. She looked at him with unshed tears in her eyes but reached out with one hand to caress his cheek.

“I knew we should have tried to break your obsession with the Ice Prince when you were still a child,” Mrs Nikiforov said with a tentative smile.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Victor answered with a smile of his own, raising a hand to cover his mother’s. “I will go, mama. With or without your blessing. But I would very much prefer if it was the former.”

The woman nodded slowly, withdrawing her hand and rising slowly from her chair. 

“I’ll talk to him. You go and rest now.”

Victor let her go without adding a word. There weren’t sadness or doubts in his heart, only an iron determination. He had made his choice years ago, possibly even before realising there was a choice to make in the first place.

“ _Come to me, Victor,_ ” called Yuuri’s voice in his mind, sweet and tender and so, so close.

“Yes, my Prince,” Victor whispered, watching the night falling outside the window.

______________

Victor opened his eyes with a groan; the first rays of sunlight filtered through the window, flooding the room. He blinked in confusion in the unfamiliar place before everything came back rushing to him. He sat up, one hand massaging his neck and his aching shoulder muscle. Victor absently wondered if he would get used to the strain of horse riding before reaching the slopes of Chaska.

It was the third day after he left Velaris, and this was the last town he would meet on his way. Victor had arrived late the previous afternoon and headed straight for the inn in search of a room to rest. He’d barely managed to eat a light dinner before collapsing into bed.  
Now, feeling much better and with his mind already listing everything he needed to do before leaving, Victor stood up and started his morning routine. While showering, he couldn’t help but think again of the day he’d left Velaris, his mother’s recommendations and her hug. His father had refused to see him off, but Victor, while turning to the main street, had noticed the curtains of the master bedroom moving suspiciously.   
The young man sighed; he knew that his father wasn’t happy despite his mother succeeding in convincing him not to oppose Victor’s choice. Victor knew the man was worried, and this was his way to show it. 

Was Victor selfish? Hadn’t his parents suffered enough, being forced to be separated from their only son for ten years, missing out everything that had turned Victor into the man he was today? Having to see him leaving again for such a dangerous task, not knowing if he would return, merely three days after having him back?

Victor tilted his head back, letting the hot water hit his face. 

Yes, he probably was selfish. But this journey, this mission, was something too important to him. Victor couldn’t help but feel like it was destiny. How else to explain the attraction that he’d had since childhood for the Ice Prince legend? How to explain that only Victor could hear the song - _Stammi Vicino_ in its original language: stay close to me - and no one else? How to explain that he could see Yuuri, hear his voice, glimpse at his memories?  
Victor had no idea of the how or the why. He didn’t know if having Ice magic was part of the reason, or if he had Ice magic _because of_ the reason. 

He didn’t care either.  
All Victor needed to know was that Yuuri was calling him, that he needed him.

Victor turned off the water, reaching out to grab the towel he’d left on the sink and quickly dried his body, before wrapping the towel around his hips. He opened the bathroom door to let the steam out and moved in front of the mirror, waiting for it to demist, his hands on the porcelain of the sink’s sides and his gaze unfocused.

He knew so much about Yuuri, and yet nothing at all.   
Upon discovering that Yuuri was a Master of Fire and not the Ice Prince as told in the books, Victor had re-evaluated everything he had given for granted and had dug deeper into books and papers. All the information Alexei brought back from Hasetsu had been invaluable, and Victor was sure he had a pretty good idea of what kind of person Prince Yuuri was.

A kind, shy young man that was also extremely stubborn and fiercely protective of the people he loved. Self-conscious and often incapable of seeing his own merits. Affected by anxiety that could be so severe, he sometimes needed to isolate himself. He was always polite, generous, and hard to befriend because of his shyness, but his affection was sincere and complete once he let you in. Intensely focused on the well-being of his population. Strong and confident when it came to deal with people who might try to take advantage of him. A bundle of contradictions which made him intriguing and enthralling.

There was no mention of partners or lovers anywhere, which didn’t mean anything. If there had been a lover, they were dead for a long time. But that didn’t mean Yuuri wouldn’t mourn their loss upon awakening. Victor felt something ugly squeezing his heart, and he hastened to drive the thought away, somewhere deep and hidden within him.  
It was not the time to think about these things. Saving Yuuri was what mattered, what Victor needed to focus on. Once Yuuri was safe, there would be time to talk. Victor hoped he was ready for a broken heart; that he was smart enough not to have expectations that Yuuri could return his feelings. There was only as much that Victor knew about Yuuri, after all.

But there was so much more Victor wanted to know.

Was Yuuri’s hair as soft as it looked? Did wrinkles appear at the sides of his beautiful eyes when he laughed? How did his voice sound like when he was stubborn and confident?  
He’d heard it calling softly for him: was it usually like this or was it something he reserved to Victor alone?

Victor shuddered when a gush of cold air coming from the room hit his naked skin, bringing him back to reality. He rushed through the morning routine, ending up dressed in comfortable clothing, perfect to travel, and went down for breakfast. Victor took his time to eat a fair amount of food; he planned to stop as less as possible during the next couple of days necessary to reach the slopes of Chaska, and a good breakfast meant he could probably push lunch farther in the afternoon. His plans for the morning included shopping for food - enough for the journey to and back, but also for Yuuri and a couple of extra days to be safe - and a sleeping bag, along with clothes more suited to the snow he would find at his destination. The cold temperatures didn’t bother him since he had mastered Ice magic, but it didn’t mean he could be careless.

On his way to go out of the inn, he stopped at the reception to pay for the night and the meals.

“Where are you heading, young man?” The woman behind the counter asked him. She was in her sixties and sported an impressive amount of tattoos on her arms.

Victor hummed non-committedly, debating with himself if it was a good idea to tell someone where he was going, just in case. He could leave a message for his parents, in case something went wrong. 

“Chaska,” he answered eventually.

The woman narrowed her eyes, scrutinising. “Why?”

“I have my reasons,” Victor answered, keeping his voice neutral and polite to disguise the annoyance at the invasive question. As for an afterthought, he asked: “Can you point me to the faster way to Mount Kavan and tell me where’s the best point of access?”

The woman stared at him with wide eyes for what felt like an eternity. When she spoke again, it was with a low, scared voice. “Why do you want to go to that place forgotten by the gods?”

Victor held the woman's gaze, unwavering. “As I said, I have my reasons. Can you help me? Or should I ask someone else maybe?”

The innkeeper seemed about to retort, probably to try to persuade him to change his mind, but Victor merely raised an eyebrow and stepped back, as if he meant to walk away.   
Seeing that it would be completely useless, the woman sighed and gestured for him to come closer again. She leaned behind the counter for a moment and emerged with a map. It wasn't exceptionally detailed, but it showed the mountain range with startling clarity. 

At Victor's surprised expression, the innkeeper replied with a bitter smile. "You would be surprised how many people, over time, have asked to reach Chaska in search of who knows what treasures. We have become experts at giving information. Even if" she added then, the smile vanished as she folded the map to reveal a trait in particular, "few have been foolish enough to ask how to get to Kavan."

The woman looked up to observe Victor, who was instead wholly focused on the map in front of him. Shaking her head in resignation, the woman pointed her finger at a line under the name "Mount Kavan".

“Kavan offers no easy way to go up. Strange as it may sound, this is good news for you because it means you don’t have many choices and you don’t risk taking the wrong path.” 

The woman stopped for a moment and murmured something that sounded suspiciously like “as if you can take any more wrong path than going there in the first place”. Victor couldn’t help but chuckle. The innkeeper blushed and coughed.

“Anyway. Follow the north, keep Mount Kavan always in front of you. Don’t trust the roads: none of them will take you to your destination. They were made to avoid Chaska, not to lead you there. The land is free of obstacles, and there are no dangerous animals that you need to watch out for, so you will have no problem keeping the right direction. Once you get close to Kavan, be sure you are ready for the cold. The storm rages at the Fingers’ base, but it’s strong enough to impact the temperature at the slopes as well. The ice will be your main problem-” The woman raised her eyes to look at Victor, to check if he was listening, and stopped talking. She blinked and frowned. “Why did you smile?”

“Pardon?” Victor asked with an innocent expression on his face.

“When I said the ice is going to be your main problem. You smiled.”

“Did I? I was remembering how much I loved going ice skating when I was a boy. Fond memories, you know? It’s a bit strange for me to think about the ice as a problem,” Victor answered smoothly. He did a much better job at keeping his lips from twitching at the corner this time, for how close to the truth he had gone with those last words.

“It’s definitely not the same as being on an ice rink there, young man,” the woman scolded, and Victor nodded politely. “Once you are right in front of the slopes, follow them to the west.” She moved her finger to the left on the map as if showing what she meant. “You will find a path going up: there are no other ones there, but to be sure it’s the right one, it has a stone-”

“-with a particular shape at the side,” Victor overlapped the woman's voice and finished the sentence when the other stopped.

The innkeeper’s eyes were narrow again, but she only nodded. She proceeded to describe the stone’s shape, but Victor wasn’t paying attention anymore. He knew the form he had to look for; it was burned in his brain, along with the other visions he’d had during his training. Yuuri’s memories. A shiver of excitement rushed down his spine.

After that, it was just rumours and assumptions. Nobody had ever returned from Kavan, so there were no safe directions. Victor thanked the woman and left to finish his errands, electrical energy flowing through his veins.   
When he left the inn for the last time later in the morning, horse fresh and well-fed and purchases packed safely, the innkeeper was at the door, looking at him with the expression of someone who doesn’t expect to see him again alive.

Victor’s grin was blinding, a hand raised to the sky in greeting, and mind and heart already miles away in front of him. 

______________

The night was cold, but not enough to be uncomfortable.

After consuming a frugal dinner, Victor had put out the small fire he had lit to keep himself warm during the meal and was now lying on his back inside the sleeping bag, hands cupping the back of his head, staring at the starry sky. Victor had already seen the night sky without the lights of civilisation fading its beauty, but not even on the isolated hill near Alexei's home had he ever been able to admire such vastness. Here, miles away from the first inhabited centre, one almost had the impression of being crushed under the celestial vault, truly alone in front of the power of the universe.

To distract himself from the feeling of uneasiness, Victor started singing softly. The song’s words came easily to his tongue now, and he wasn’t surprised when the melody joined in, humming to support his singing. But when he approached the refrain, the humming stopped. Instead, Yuuri’s voice started singing as well, in a different tone that contrasted with Victor's voice and complemented it at the same time. Victor nearly choked in surprise, and for a moment, he missed the right note; he recovered quickly and closed his eyes, full of hope. Yuuri's face appeared almost instantly, so vivid that Victor felt his heart stop in his chest for what seemed like an eternity.

 _Stay close to me, don’t go away.  
_ _I’m afraid of losing you._

Yuuri's eyes shone brighter than the stars, and a light blush dusted his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He sang with an adorable smile on his lips, and Victor could have sworn he heard his voice tremble almost as much as his own.

When the song ended, expectant silence descended between them.

"I've never heard you sing," Victor whispered. The voice had only answered him once in all those years, but he couldn't hold back.

"I can sense you there," Yuuri replied, and it could have been an answer as well as something completely unrelated, but it didn't matter. "Come to me, Victor. Don't make me wait one moment more."

“I'm arriving, and it feels like I am home.”

When Victor fell asleep, Yuuri was still watching him, his deep, brown eyes full of longing and hope.

______________

Victor resumed his journey when dawn was still only a strip of light just hinted to the east. The day before, he had gone as far as he could so that he had only a few hours of travel ahead of him in the morning. 

The sky changed as the slopes of Kavan approached; the blue gave way to a strange milky white first and thick clouds later. He had no way of seeing the sun’s position, but he calculated the elapsed time with some degree of accuracy thanks to daylight progression, nodding pleased when he realised it was still quite early in the morning. Victor silently thanked Alexei and his survival lessons while tying his horse in a safe place, surrounded by fresh grass.

When he finally reached the path, Victor kneeled in front of the stone he had only seen in his visions until now. There was no doubt it was the same one, and he turned his face towards the path climbing up, careful to take in any useful detail. Gushes of wind played with his bangs, pushing it constantly into his eyes. Victor didn’t let it distract him.

The path was narrow and steep, but still free of ice or snow. Looking up along the rock face that towered over him, Victor could see the trail climbing and twisting in multiple curves, and notice where the first snow would begin to complicate the climb. His sea-coloured eyes sought even higher, where a circle of darker, more menacing clouds slowly rotated as if moved by a circular wind current, hiding the rest of the mountain and the Fingers.

Victor stood up again and assessed the backpack’s weight on his shoulders; he had all the food with him, along with four flasks of water and the sleeping bag neatly rolled and firmly secured. It wasn't ideal, but there was no other solution. Victor would have preferred not to have weights hanging over his ability to move, but he had to be practical and think about Yuuri and his needs once out of his ice prison. He would take care of Yuuri with all of himself, regardless of what Yuuri would or would not feel for him.

The climb was slow but steady. Victor had changed his clothes and boots before he left the horse, and the mountain shoes held up well against the uneven ground's attempts to make him slip. At some point on the way up, Victor realised he could see Velaris in the distance while stopping to take a sip of water. It was the same point of view as one of his visions, which gave him new energy. 

When the snow finally made its appearance, Victor was relieved: it was easier to grip the fresh snow piles than the crumbly rocky ground. The wind had gained strength on the way up, and the storm circle now loomed directly over Victor. After another unspecified time frame, he found a curve in the path, followed immediately after by a narrower one, and he knew he was close now. Every inch of him was trembling, but not for the cold. The snow was everywhere, and all in a sudden, almost without warning, Victor found himself engulfed in the storm.

It was as if someone had turned off a switch. The daylight disappeared almost completely, leaving Victor blind and disoriented for a few moments. Gusts of wind blew from different directions at once, whipping his face with his hair and snow swept by the storm's fury. The change was so sudden that Victor panicked, put one foot wrong and lost his balance, hitting a knee painfully on the frozen ground. The rush of pain shot up to his brain, instantly taking over and relegating any other worries or anxieties to mere background noises. 

It was in the space of those few, precious moments that Victor perceived it.

Ice magic out of control surrounded him. And suddenly everything was clear: the presence of the storm, why no one had ever managed to overcome it, how it affected the sky and the weather around Mount Kavan. 

It was not a natural storm. 

Victor suppressed the dull pain in his knee and closed his eyes. Deprived of the distraction of the inability to see, he cut off the howl of the wind and slowly extended his magic. Carefully, he drew the broken lines of spells gone wrong and how they intertwined, fueling each other. It was ancient magic; Victor could feel it clearly. The wizard who’d cast it was powerful and skilled in the use of magic, but he hadn't received adequate training. Recalling what uncle Alexei had told him about Avador Sokolov, Victor had the confirmation that the man thought himself too evolved to have to stoop to study. 

The storm was what remained of Sokolov's misuse of magic, what Prince Yuuri hadn't been able to tame before he was trapped.

Victor continued to follow the skein of mad magic, looking for its fulcrum. At one point, the storm sensed his presence; like a living creature, the whirlwind seemed to accelerate, trying to repel him. But Victor had studied and had done so for many years and with dedication. Leaving a thread of his magic to continue the search, he used the rest to deflect attacks, creating loops in which he began to trap the whips of energy that tried to take him down.

Victor gritted his teeth. The attack was relentless, and he knew he had to reach Yuuri before the sunset. Storm or not, and despite his tolerance to cold temperatures, at that altitude the night would seriously endanger his survival without a shelter.

And then he finally found it. The throbbing centre of maddened magic, the core protected by a tangle of magical streams acting like whipping whips. Victor concentrated on his thin thread, prodding and pushing, looking for an entry. The streams bent defensively, giving no space. Victor felt anger build up inside him: he had no time for caution; he had to act quickly.  
He pictured in his mind what he had to do, the speed of execution, the potential risks. Alexei's voice rose from his memories of one of his countless lessons.

_"Consider all points of view, Vitya. You’re the most powerful Ice magic user of the Continent and sometimes taking risks is the only solution, but solving a problem and not being alive to enjoy it is not a victory."_

Victor smiled sharply.

The thin wire pushed to one side of the defence, and the flows moved to block it. Victor suddenly pulled back part of his shield and created a phalanx that shattered on the opposite side. The streams swerved and lost consistency, making a breach. It was then that Victor summoned all his magic, subjecting himself to the fury of the storm without protections.

"Enough!" Victor yelled, rising to his feet and spreading his arms wide as if he wanted to open the storm in two physically.

He cast his magic with all his might into the breach. The barrier of streams shattered and the core exploded in a myriad of bright sparks. There was a sucking sound, followed by a shock wave that would have knocked Victor off the mountain wall if he hadn't created a shield of magic at the last moment.

For a moment, all Victor could hear was the sound of his ragged breathing and a persistent ringing in his ears. When his breath calmed down enough, Victor opened his eyes to take in the situation.

The storm was gone, vanished, as if it had never existed, and the sunset light reflected off columns of pure ice that framed the entrance to a cave a few meters from where Victor was standing. As in a daze, Victor started walking, ignoring the dull pain in his knee. 

So close.  
He was so close now.

“Here I am, I’ve come so far,” he whispered, crossing the threshold.

Inside, there was only silence. Walls, floor, ceiling, everything was covered with sheets of transparent ice that showed no signs of welding as if it were a single block hollowed out and smoothed. The echo of Victor's footsteps was the only sound.

“Show yourself. I’m dying to meet you,” Victor said, stroking the frozen wall with one hand.

Yuuri’s voice talked to him as if he were right in front of him. “Come, my darling, homeward bound.” Victor shivered at the endearment. 

He followed a long, wide corridor, ignoring other minor passages he encountered in his path. It was like having a thread pulling to his heart, urging him to hurry. And then the corridor opened into a massive space with a gigantic glyph engraved in the iced floor.

Victor let out a tremulous sigh, which turned into a sob eventually.

There was no violent storm of magic. That vision had been Yuuri’s memory and what the Prince had battled and beaten one hundred and fifty years ago.  
Instead, an immense stalagmite of ice dominated the glyph, smooth and transparent as glass. Inside, body wrapped in dark clothes, eyes closed and the peaceful face of someone abandoned to deep sleep, was Yuuri Katsuki, 

Victor closed the distances with tentative steps until he reached the stalagmite. His fingers lifted to touch the face trapped in the ice.

Suddenly, Victor felt like he couldn't wait any longer.  
He needed to see those magnificent eyes open.   
He needed to see them look at him, not in his mind but for real.

Victor turned and examined the glyph. He forced himself to push down his need to hurry up, to go back to Yuuri, to stare at him. He hadn't come this far to risk failure now due to haste.  
Victor took his time, circling the symbol and examining it from all directions. Then he scanned the room, expanding his magic, looking for traps or weaknesses. He found none. The place was stable and safe, and if the fight between Yuuri and Sokolov had created damage in the past, then the ice had repaired itself over time.

When he was confident of the glyph’s nature and their shelter’s safety, Victor returned to the stalagmite.

"All my life I've been torn. But I knew it. I'm here for a reason, to save you, my Prince," Victor murmured, and then he turned around, looking at the magic symbol instead.

Victor raised his arms in front of him and expanded his magic again, directing it towards the glyph this time. It began to glow, a pulsating light, like the beating of a heart. Victor's hands lifted upward, and as if in response, the brightness of the entire cave changed as if there were a source of light flowing through the walls.

Victor slowly spun around and placed his palms on the stalagmite. It was as if the whole cave inhaled and exhaled once. The glyph's energy flowed across the floor and rose to meet Victor's palms: the lines of light morphed into a replica of the magical symbol. Victor closed his eyes and focused all his attention on the point of contact.

"Release," he whispered.

The stalagmite dissolved.   
There was no explosion, no pieces of ice thrown into the room.   
There was no sound, no flashes of light.  
The moment before, the stalagmite existed, solid and impenetrable.  
The next moment, it was gone.

The now unsupported body of Prince Yuuri began to fall to the floor, but Victor was ready. His arms wrapped around the prince's cold and rigid body and gently led him to the ground. Victor sat down, wrapping his legs around the other man as well as his arms, bringing Yuuri’s back against his chest, the dark-haired head resting on his shoulder.

Victor waited.

He waited and thought about those wizards who had tried to free Yuuri from his prison so long ago, losing their life instead. They had surely used Fire, thinking they could melt the ice. Nobody with Ice magic went fighting a proficient wizard in the same magic, deeming it useless. Alexei told Victor that much. Therefore, nobody could even think about using Ice magic to undo what that same magic out of control created. It had been a fatal mistake for many.

Victor waited. 

He used light fingers to caress that familiar face, threading through his black hair, stiff from the cold.

"You are the answer I've waited for all of my life," the young man whispered at some point.

Victor waited.

He couldn't tell how long it was; maybe ten days, maybe ten years. Maybe ten minutes. But finally, Yuuri's chest rose and fell. At first in small frantic movements, which took on a more stable rhythm after a minute. 

And then thick dark lashes quivered, slowly rose, revealing two deep chocolate-coloured pools, in which golden sparks swam. Yuuri blinked slowly once, then a second time. Dark eyes found sea-coloured ones, and lips that had remained motionless for too long attempted a smile that didn’t quite come before parting to let out a hoarse whisper.

"You came."

______________

An ice-covered cave wasn't exactly the best place for a Fire Master in need of recovering all his vital functions. But the night had fallen, and the outside temperature combined with the altitude would have killed both of them.

Yuuri's body soon began to tremble in Victor's arms; barely perceptible at first, but then it became uncontrollable. The shock of exiting the magical life suspension was taking its toll, and Victor knew he had to move quickly.

Yuuri's jaw trembled so hard that his teeth slammed in quick, dry clicks. Worried that he might get hurt, Victor took off one of the leather laces that made up the backpack’s closure and, as gently as possible, slipped it between Yuuri's teeth. They tightened into a vice almost instantly, and the tremor turned into a vibration of the whole jaw. Yuuri's wide eyes, veiled with tiredness and something very similar to terror, fixed on Victor.

"Try to resist," Victor murmured soothing, moving strands of black hair from Yuuri’s forehead drenched in a cold sweat. “I’m going to start a fire in a minute. Let me put you inside the sleeping bag first.”

Victor unrolled the sleeping bag and put it on the iced floor. He thanked every known and unknown deity that he had decided to buy the more expensive one; it was wider than a simple single bag and, above all, equipped with external waterproof protection.

Victor unzipped the bag entirely and opened it to its full width. Then he rotated on himself and, speaking all the time to keep Yuuri awake and let him know what he was about to do, he slipped one hand under Yuuri's neck and around his shoulders, and the other under his knees. Victor lifted the Prince from the ground with tenderness but firmness to counter the tremor that shook Yuuri’s whole body and placed him on the soft wool of the sleeping bag, hurrying to close it around him.

Then he went to work.

Victor thought gratefully of all the times Alexei had put him under pressure to teach him what to prioritise in extreme situations. His mind was focused entirely on what to do to protect Yuuri, leaving him no time to acknowledge the terror simmering in the deepest part of himself. He could not afford distractions, especially if they represented his deepest fear: having saved Yuuri from the ice only to let him slip through his fingers now for not being able to take care of him.

He took off the backpack two bunches of wooden branches he’d collected along the way to Chaska and quickly organised them. Then he took one of the accelerator baits he bought from the store and put it in the middle. With expert gestures, Victor rubbed two pieces of wood together until sparks ignited a fire large enough to warm the area around him and Yuuri. 

Satisfied, Victor turned to check the Prince and found him staring at the fire as if hypnotised. However, the tremor had not diminished, and suddenly Victor realised that Yuuri was still wearing his wet, dark clothes. Victor shuffled closer, and Yuuri’s eyes snapped on him.

“Prince Yuuri,” Victor said softly, and oh, how good it felt to call his name, even with the honorific title. Victor didn’t dare to be too familiar with him, worried about the correct etiquette. “I need to take off your clothes.” 

A pale blush rose on Yuuri’s cheeks, the contrast made starker by the unnaturally pale complexion, and Victor hastened to explain. "Please, fear not. Wet clothes prevent your body from warming up. You can trust me, Your Highness. I would never do anything to make you upset.” Victor's voice trembled at the last words, shaken by the fear that Yuuri might misunderstand or misjudge him.

Yuuri stared at him for long moments and then tried to say something. The piece of leather between his teeth prevented him, however, and Victor hurried to remove it.

“Yuuri,” the Prince said, moving his chapped and trembling lips slowly. “Just Yuuri.”

Those few words were already an effort for the weakened man, who closed his eyes shortly afterwards, losing consciousness. Victor let out a tremulous sigh. Yuuri had not given a clear answer, but he had not even expressed denial. Deciding that his safety was more important than modesty, Victor opened the sleeping bag again and began to remove the cold clothes that clung to Yuuri's skin. Victor stubbornly refused to stare at the Prince's body; instead, he concentrated on taking off the clothes as quickly as possible, yet not letting the wet fabric rub against the sensitive skin too roughly. When only the underwear remained, Victor hesitated. But he knew that even a small damp garment would slow recovery, and so, utterly respectful, Victor removed everything and closed the sleeping bag around Yuuri, tucking in the sides as close to his body as possible.

Time passed. Victor took the water flasks out of his backpack and placed them close enough to the fire to make the water inside less freezing. After that, he examined the food available, sorting something adequate for Yuuri with his current strength. From time to time, Victor placed a light hand on the other man's forehead, to check that he did not have a fever. The tremor that shook him had subsided, but it had not disappeared. Victor frowned, trying to think: there was only one more thing he could do, but he needed Yuuri to give him permission.

Victor looked back at the cavern around them and extended his magic to probe the ice. The fire was small, but with such ancient structures, even the slightest temperature change could cause a catastrophe, and Victor was keeping himself ready to reinforce the ice if necessary. When he was sure everything was fine, Victor raised a hand and brought it to his eyes, rubbing them with his fingers. He was exhausted, but he couldn't rest before being sure that Yuuri would make it through the night.

Victor heard shuffling beside him and jerked his head to the side. Yuuri was watching him, his gaze intense despite the eyes veiled with exhaustion.

"How do you feel?" Victor asked, kneeling beside the sleeping bag. Yuuri tried to wet his lips with his tongue, but he still seemed to struggle to control his body. Victor took one of the flasks of water and poured a few drops inside his wrist, to feel the temperature. Nodding, he looked back at Yuuri. “I’m going to help you drink some water.”

When Yuuri nodded, Victor slipped a hand behind the Prince's neck, lifting him just enough so that he could drink without uncovering himself. Victor tilted the flask slowly, letting Yuuri drink at his own pace. However, soon Yuuri began to cough, and Victor hastened to put the flask on the ground and then put his now free arm around the other man's torso, patting lightly on his back after lifting him seated. Victor tried to ignore the fact that he was basically hugging Yuuri, both of his arms wrapped around the young man's shoulders, his hands on the still cold skin. When the coughing attack ended, Yuuri tilted his head forward and rested his forehead on Victor's shoulder, trying to catch his breath.  
Victor stood still, hardly daring to breathe. When Yuuri’s breathing evened, Victor gently moved to bring him back down, without meeting any resistance. 

"Yuuri," he finally decided to say, "your body is still cold, and I have no way to increase the fire without jeopardising the solidity of the cave. There is-," Victor stopped, swallowing, and looked away from the dark eyes that continued to peer into him. "There is something else we can do. But I need you to give me permission.

Yuuri remained silent as if waiting, and Victor squinted his eyes for a moment. "I can get into the sleeping bag with you. The heat from another body will certainly raise the temperature inside it. Ideally-." Victor had to stop again. His eyes slowly opened, remaining fixed on the icy floor. "If I get rid of my clothes too, I could ..." His voice trailed off before finishing the sentence, and Victor couldn't find the strength in himself to continue.

For a few, eternal seconds, there was only silence. Then, Victor heard a rustle of fabric and looked up. Yuuri was trying to unzip the sleeping bag, but his fingers refused to hold on. The Prince looked irritated; giving up, he shifted his gaze again to lock with Victor's and brought his hand to the top edge of the sleeping bag instead, raising it slightly in Victor's direction.

It was a clear invitation.

Victor began to undress slowly. He had never been the type to feel uncomfortable being naked in front of others, but with Yuuri, it was different. As he removed the layers of clothing, Victor felt more and more self-conscious. What if Yuuri had accepted only not to offend him? What if Yuuri found him repulsive, but was too polite to say it?

When he was just in his underwear, Victor put his folded clothes carefully over the backpack so they wouldn't get wet and moved to get into the sleeping bag. Daring a glance at Yuuri, he caught him looking at his body; the moment after, Yuuri’s big dark eyes snapped back to Victor’s face, and his cheeks tinged again with an intriguing pink. Victor didn't say a word; slowly, he opened the zip with uncertain gestures and slipped into the sleeping bag, trying to keep as far away as possible from Yuuri. It wasn't easy at all: the bag was larger than most, but it wasn't precisely double. Two grown men had at most an inch of space between them, and only if they both pushed to opposite sides.

Victor turned to close the zip again, and in doing so, his feet touched one of Yuuri's bare calves. The young man let out a surprised scream that nearly made Victor jump out of his skin and echoed wildly in the massive, empty cave.

"Yuuri, are you okay?" Victor said in a panicked voice, turning his head to stare at the Prince with wide eyes. The latter slammed both hands against his mouth, an apologetic look in his eyes.

“S- S- Sorry,” Yuuri stammered, his voice still hoarse from little use. “Your f- feet… icy…”

“Oh,” Victor said and blushed fiercely. “Uh. My magic is- well, I own Ice magic, so I don’t really feel the cold?” Victor wasn’t sure why those words turned into a question. “Even if I lay with my naked feet on the ice, I don’t feel it. Sure, my skin turns icy, but it doesn’t impact my body if it’s for a short time. I, uhm- I guess it’s a bit the same for you? With fire?”

Yuuri nodded slowly; there was something strange in his expression, something unreadable. “Ice… magic?” He asked after a moment.

Victor nodded puzzled. Uncle Alexei told him that Ice magic wasn’t forbidden when Yuuri was alive - well, he was still alive, sure, but back then, so Yuuri shouldn’t be surprised someone could use it. As a matter of fact, nobody had opposed Sokolov until it was-

Victor’s eyes widened in understanding, and he sat up abruptly, the sleeping bag falling from his chest, and his hands moving frantically in front of him. “No, no, no. I’m nothing like him!” He rushed to say, and Yuuri seemed a bit taken aback. “Sokolov. I’m nothing like him. Nobody is. Actually, things have changed a lot since then for those who have Ice magic and-” Victor realised he was rambling and shut his mouth. It was not the right time. Yuuri still didn’t know so much, including how long he spent trapped in the ice. He had to proceed with caution.

The Prince was looking at him with an inquiring gaze, and to Victor, it seemed almost as if Yuuri could read his mind. He ran his fingers nervously through his silver bangs and slowly laid down again. After closing the zip, Victor turned on his side, facing Yuuri. "I'll tell you about it another time. For now, know that you are in no danger, especially with me." There was a pause as Victor folded an arm under his head, then placed his cheek on the bare skin. "Try to sleep now. You need to rest and regain your strength," he said gently, before closing his eyes and pretending to sleep. 

Victor felt Yuuri's gaze stare at him for a minute or two before he seemed to give up. The Prince was lying on his back, and Victor was glad to have turned on one side; this way, Yuuri had more space for himself. The crackle of the fire was the only sound that broke the deep silence of the cave. As far as Victor knew, he and Yuuri could be the last remaining living beings on the entire planet.

When Victor was about to fall asleep, the rustle of something moving roused him just enough to make him aware of a cold body clinging to his own. Victor opened his eyes: Yuuri had turned in his sleep, probably attracted by the heat of Victor's body, and had shuffled until his bent legs clung to Victor's thighs, and his forehead leaned against Victor’s chest. His arms were gathered to his torso as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible to retain heat.

With caution, Victor moved his arms until he could wrap Yuuri in a hug, holding him tight. Just to share body heat, he told himself. Victor dropped a soft kiss on Yuuri's black hair and let himself slip into sleep.

______________

Victor woke up slowly, his mind still muffled by sleep.

He basked in the lovely feeling of the soft wool of the sleeping bag against his bare skin and his aching body nicely wrapped around something pleasantly warm. At some point, his brain caught up, and Victor frowned, still laying down with his eyes closed; the fire should be extinguished for hours. Victor hadn't used all the wood at his disposal in case he needed to light another one the next day. So where did the heat that was enveloping him come from?

Victor opened his eyes, heavy lids blinking several times, trying to ward off sleep. Light filtered through the ice in the ceiling, barely illuminating the cavern. It was enough to bring his immediate surroundings into focus. Victor tried to stretch his legs, and a pang of pain ran through his stiff muscles. He winced, and a groan escaped from his lips.  
Something moved in his arms, and Victor almost jerked back, before a soft sigh recalled the memory of what had happened the day before.

Yuuri.

Victor's eyes snapped open. They were spooning; Victor wrapped around Yuuri's body, and the young man's back pressed against his chest. There was no distance between their bodies; they clung to their entire length, and Victor realised after several moments of blissful awe that the source of heat he had sensed was indeed not the fire. It was Yuuri.  
The Prince's breathing was deep and steady, and his skin gave off almost excessive heat. Victor rushed to sit up, looking for the flask of water he had left next to them the night before. If Yuuri had a fever, it would have complicated things considerably, because Victor had no medicines to fight an illness. He mentally cursed himself; why hadn't he considered it? Victor was so used to his own tolerance to cold that he hadn't considered how it could have impacted Yuuri instead. What would he do now? What-

"Are you okay?"

Victor turned back and found Yuuri perched on an elbow, the other hand rubbing his eyes softened by sleep, and a line of worry crossing his forehead. His hair was messy, his skin rosy and exposed down to his waist where the sleeping bag pooled after he had moved, and overall he looked absolutely adorable.

“I- Yes, I- Yuuri, are _you_ okay?” Victor stammered, incapable of stopping himself from staring.

“I- yes?” Yuuri frowned as if he couldn’t understand the question. 

“Your body feels hot. I'm afraid you may have a fever, and I don’t have medications with me.”

Yuuri blinked and then smiled softly. “You don’t have to worry about it. My body’s temperature is usually higher than average because of Fire magic. Like yours is lower.”

It was then that Victor realised that Yuuri was talking. His voice was still a bit rough, but he wasn’t shivering or stammering anymore. And if his body temperature was higher, that meant that they’d done it. They’d survived the night, and Yuuri was feeling better and Victor-

Victor had saved him, as he’d promised him so many times.

Yuuri sat properly and seemed to realise only then that he was naked. Blushing fiercely, he rushed to lift the front of the sleeping bag to cover his chest, the wool tightened in clenched fists. Victor turned to give him some privacy, being careful not to mention how they had just spent the night skin to skin.

"I have some spare clothes with me. They may be a little big for you, but they are dry and warm."

Victor listened to Yuuri mutter a thank you behind him and smiled to himself. He got out of the sleeping bag and reached the nearby backpack, recovering the clothes he had taken off the night before. Victor did a quick job of putting them on again, before rummaging through his bag and pulling out a pair of thick dark trousers and a soft blue sweater. He added a pair of socks and underwear, and stretched his arm towards Yuuri, offering the clothes but keeping his head turned.

"While you get dressed, I prepare some food."

A little while later, they sat on the sleeping bag facing each other, eating dried meat, seeded bread and fruit. Yuuri ate slowly, and Victor supposed his body needed time to readjust. When they finished, Victor moved to put the rest of the food back into the backpack. He was sure Yuuri had lots of questions, but he didn’t want to press. It was going to be a tough conversation, and if Yuuri needed time, Victor would give him as long as he wanted.

“How long?” Yuuri’s tentative voice broke the silence, and Victor immediately knew what he was asking. He went back to sit in front of Yuuri and took a deep breath, steadying himself to be ready to support him. The Prince was picking at a loose thread of the rolled jumper’s sleeve, nervous.

“One hundred and fifty years.”

Yuuri’s hand stilled. The Prince lifted his face, and his shocked, horrified expression broke Victor's heart.

“But… but…,” Yuuri tried, but it felt like his voice couldn’t make it through his choked throat.

Victor shuffled forward and slowly moved a hand to reach out to Yuuri’s, giving him all the time to step back or refuse. Yuuri didn’t move. Victor's fingers gently curled around Yuuri's slacked hand, wrapping it. Keeping his eyes on their limbs, Victor began to speak.

He told Yuuri everything he knew. The duel against Sokolov; how the magic had retorted against the Prince; how the other wizards had tried to save him and had lost their lives; how Mount Kavan gained the reputation of a cursed mountain, extending it to the whole Chaska. Victor told Yuuri how, in years, Ice magic users were persecuted and detained, possibly killed. He told Yuuri about himself and how he’d been fascinated by the Prince’s story since he was a child. How the Ice magic had manifested and how his father had sent him away to protect him. He told him about the song.

Victor recounted the years with Alexei, all the way to his uncle’s journey to Hasetsu. When Yuuri heard the name Nishigori, tears started to stream down his cheeks.   
Victor pushed down the lump in his throat and kept talking.  
He told Yuuri about the research Yuuko Nishigori started back then, and how her triplets took over. He told him how Alexei brought back all that knowledge for Victor to study and prepare. How that journey eventually took his uncle’s life.

By the time Victor recalled his journey to Mount Kavan, how he’d fought and defeated the storm and eventually freed Yuuri by his prison, Yuuri was crying so hard he could hardly breathe.

“Dead. They are all dead,” Yuuri sobbed, voice broken. “Okāsan, Otōsan, Mari, Yuuko… They are all gone. I… I’m alone.”

Victor squeezed Yuuri’s hand hard. “You have me,” he said fiercely, before leaning forward to wrap Yuuri in his arms. Yuuri clenched the front of Victor’s jumper in his fists and dropped his face on Victor’s shoulder, body shaking uncontrollably under the onslaught of the sobs.

“You have me,” Victor whispered again, and let Yuuri cry.

______________

When Yuuri’s sobs finally subsided after what felt like hours later, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep. Victor moved him as carefully as he could until Yuuri was lying in the sleeping bag again; then he busied himself with a new fire. He cut some vegetables and selected the best pieces of meat, putting them aside for Yuuri. He prepared some thick slices of bread, pushing a stick through to toast them later.

When the food was ready, Victor wet a handkerchief with a bit of water and used it to clean Yuuri's face from the lines of dried tears that stained his cheeks. The young man didn’t even stir.

After a while, Victor ventured to the entrance of the cave. The sky was clear, and the sunset beautiful, but Victor couldn’t appreciate it properly. He felt so much pain for Yuuri. He couldn't even imagine what it was like to wake up from a magical sleep to find that all your loved ones were long dead.   
Victor stood on the threshold, watching the sun disappearing on the horizon, in silence.  
He’d told Yuuri that he was there for him, but that didn’t mean Yuuri wanted him. Victor had known this from the beginning, but now that he’d seen the man, now that he’d talked to him, spent time with him, the thought of being rejected, of letting Yuuri go was unbearable.

And yet, Victor had to be ready.

Victor was so lost in his thought that he didn’t realise he wasn’t alone anymore until a hesitant hand touched his forearm. Startled, Victor turned on his left to find Yuuri next to him. Yuuri's eyes were swollen and rimmed red, but he wasn’t crying. Before Victor could say anything, Yuuri spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a soft voice. “You have dedicated your entire life to this research and risked everything to save me, and in return, I only managed to mourn the loss of other people. You must think I'm incredibly ungrateful.”

“Yuuri,” Victor said, turning to face the other man fully and raising his hands to cup his face oh so gently. “I would have been shocked and not a little concerned if you hadn't mourned the loss of your family and friends.”

Yuuri hummed and tilted his head to one side, leaning more in Victor’s touch.

“I meant what I said earlier, Yuuri. You have me. I am here for you. I can be a friend, a fatherly figure, a-,” Victor stopped and looked away from those dark pools that were once again piercing his soul. He inhaled and released a sigh, turning to look back at Yuuri once he had collected his thoughts. “You are not alone. My parents will be more than happy to meet you. You can stay with us for as long as you wish, or go wherever you want, do whatever you like.”

Yuuri broke eye contact to look at the starry night and the lights of houses in the distance.

"I had a dream,” he said after a moment. "I was surrounded by darkness, but I was not afraid. It was as if I was floating in the void. I didn't know how long it had been or where I was, but it didn't matter. To keep me company, I hummed my favourite song again and again." Yuuri paused, and his lips hinted at a smile that died almost immediately. "And then there was the figure of a boy with long silver hair. I couldn’t see anything else about him. But that boy heard me sing."

There was a pause of silence which neither man interrupted. Victor continued to cup Yuuri's cheeks; a thumb began to make small circles on the skin, soothing.

"He was close; then, he went far away, and I felt him leaving, and I tried to call him back. For a while, I didn't see him again; then he came back to me. And he started singing too. At first, I could see only his eyes, a breathtaking blue. Then his face. He talked to me, but he didn't seem to be able to hear me. I began wanting to see his face more and more often. His voice comforted me; it closed a hole in my heart that I didn't know I had. He called me his Prince, and he promised me he would come looking for me. He told me his name was Victor. "

Yuuri turned back to look at Victor and raised his hands to lay them on his.

“You heard me calling you, begging you to come to me. I didn’t know anything, Victor. I had no idea of where I was or how long had it been. All I knew was that I yearned for you. I wanted to see you. I wanted you close to me.”

“Stay close to me, don’t go away. I’m afraid of losing you,” Victor murmured, and Yuuri shuddered.

“You came,” Yuuri said, an echo of his first words, and took a step forward. His eyes were shining, reflecting the stars in the sky.

“I made a promise to my Prince,” Victor answered, his voice barely higher than a whisper, his gaze locked with the other man’s.

Yuuri raised on the ball of his feet, and Victor leaned forward. Their lips met halfway, while Yuuri’s arms went to circle Victor’s neck and Victor’s arms enveloped Yuuri’s waist. The kiss was sweet and slow, and when they broke it, they both felt like the axis of the planet had tilted.

It felt like discovering a new world.   
It felt like coming home.

“Let’s go back inside and eat; then we can sleep,” Victor murmured, his forehead resting against Yuuri’s, head still spinning. “I want to leave early tomorrow, leave this place and never see it again.”

Yuuri hummed softly, eyes closed. “Where do you want to take me, my knight in shining armour?”

Victor smiled. 

“Home, my Prince.”

______________

They left at the first lights of dawn. 

Yuuri melted the glyph on the floor with his magic and turned his back to the cave without looking back.

Victor helped Yuuri down the mountainside, often stopping to let him rest. The young man was still weak from his long imprisonment, and his muscles had to rebuild their strength.

When they finally reached the slopes of Kavan, Victor was delighted to find the horse where he had tied him, well-fed thanks to the lush grass. Victor made Yuuri mount it and walked beside him, describing the territory’s geography and the places they would encounter. More than once, Yuuri tried to protest, saying he could walk, but Victor refused to listen. 

They spent two nights outdoors, sharing the sleeping bag under the starry sky, before reaching the village that Victor had left about a week earlier. When they entered the inn, the innkeeper was so shocked that she dropped a whole set of mugs she was carrying.

Yuuri and Victor spent two days in town.

Nearly all the villagers took turns talking to Victor, asking him repeatedly how he’d survived. Victor patiently told everyone the same story. How he had met Yuuri on the slopes of Kavan, engaged in an exploration similar to his; how together they had tried to climb the mountain and how they had almost died if the storm had not suddenly disappeared into thin air. No, Victor didn't have an explanation to give. No, Yuuri hadn't seen anyone but the two of them.

When Yuuri had regained enough strength thanks to good food and plenty of rest, they resumed the journey to Velaris.

______________

It was the afternoon of the fourth day since they had left the town. 

Victor entered the small path that led to his house’s front door, his fingers intertwined with Yuuri's. The young man was nervous, and Victor paused for a moment in front of the entrance to place a light kiss on his lips.

"They'll love you. They've heard about you since I was five, don't worry."

Yuuri let out a nervous chuckle.

Victor knocked on the door.

"Coming," said a voice inside, and Victor felt tears rise to his eyes.

Mrs Nikiforov opened the door, took in who was in front of her and stared.

"Darling?" Mr Nikiforov’s voice came from within, approaching. "Who is-?"

The voice trailed off and died. Victor looked from his father to his mother and then looked at Yuuri, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot, observing the two adults with a nervous look from under his long black lashes.

"Vitya," his father said, white in the face as if he had seen a ghost. 

Mrs Nikiforov had already shifted her gaze to Yuuri, a light of recognition in her eyes. The woman's hand darted to grab her husband's arm while she stared at Yuuri with wide eyes.

Victor moved closer to the younger man and put his arm around his waist, holding him close. His smile was brighter than the sun.

"Mama. Father. Meet Yuuri."

  
  



End file.
